till our compass stands still
by sharoncarters
Summary: Steve says, "They're going to come looking for you." Sharon says, "I know." / Sharon Carter and the gang, post Captain America: Civil War.
1. Chapter 1

hoo boy. here i am folks, with a fic that i promised to write ages ago. just like like ships in the night, this is what i'd like to image the aftermath of civil war to look like, if marvel loved me and even remotely cared about sharon. this fic isn't connected to that one, but like that one, it's rife with headcanons. it's been a long while in the making, so hopefully you guys enjoy it!

* * *

So, help me decide  
Help me to make up,  
Make up my mind  
Wouldn't that save you?  
Wouldn't that save you?  
Wouldn't that save you?  
\- Matthew Perryman Jones, Save You

* * *

Steve says, "They're going to come looking for you."

Sharon says, "I know."

She means it. She sees the consequences and thinks, I can do this. Whatever happens, I can face it. I can be strong. And then she does the one thing that she swore she'd never do, the one thing that she's never done before: she runs.

* * *

Sharon runs; not because she has to, not because she feels like she doesn't have another choice. It's not like she can't lie, can't cover up the truth of everything that has happened with Steve. Everything that she'd done _for_ Steve, no matter how much she tells herself it was for the cause, for the mission. Because no one ever gave her any orders to do what she did. She came up with it all on her own. (Lying to Ross would be easy, simple. She's done it plenty, and she could do it plenty more, if she wanted to. None of them at the CIA take her seriously anyway. She's just another SHIELD reject to them, someone to file paperwork and buy coffee.)

Sharon wants to believe that she's a good person, that she'd have helped the right side regardless, even if it wasn't Steve. But Tony was there, and she could've joined his side, too, done what the CIA told her to. And she didn't. So now she has to live with that, live with the choices that she's made. She has to live with the fact that she hasn't spoken to Tony for weeks since what happened in Germany.

She'd thought that not running was what made her more than just a spy; what made her a SHIELD agent, different than someone like Natasha. But now, the lines between the two are so blurry that Sharon can't even tell the difference anymore. Sharon runs because she's followed rules her entire life, and it's sort of freeing to let go.

Sure, she's challenged authority here and there. She wouldn't be a Carter if she hadn't. But besides that, Sharon's done everything right. She got accepted to the Academy on merit alone, changing her name and fudging her family history. Aunt Peggy hadn't even known that she was applying.

Which, to be fair: Aunt Peggy knew. Becoming a SHIELD agent was the only thing Sharon had talked about her entire life, of _course_ Aunt Peggy knew. She wouldn't be Aunt Peggy if she didn't.

But she had't stopped Sharon, either, hadn't told her not to do it, hadn't even revealed an inkling of her knowledge to Sharon. And Sharon had gotten in. She'd gotten in and she became the best damn SHIELD agent that she could've been, whatever that was worth now. SHIELD is basically gone, the Avengers are broken up, and Sharon's jobless and (probably) homeless. She has money saved up, but not enough. If she'd been speaking to Tony, she knows that he'd offer her help, but that obviously isn't an option anymore. Not that she'd ever taken his money, anyway.

She hasn't heard from Steve in weeks, either. From anyone, really, not just Steve and Tony. It's too dangerous to be in contact with known fugitives, but then again, she's a fugitive now, too, isn't she?

* * *

In the first few weeks after Leipzig, Sharon spends a lot of time flitting from town to town across Europe, through cafes and foreign markets, hostels and barely held together apartments for rent. She becomes, in essence, exactly the type of person that Bucky had had to become after he'd escaped the fall of the Trisk. Of course it makes Sharon sick to her stomach to compare herself to him, to pretend like her situation is in any way similar to his, to what he'd had to go through.

She's nowhere near as strong as him, or as brave. She's a little girl again, running away from home, pretending like she knows what she's doing.

* * *

Planes are too dangerous, public transportation less so, and any type of Uber-like service out of the question. The last thing she needs is someone tracking her every move, even if she _had_ dumped her phone, stomped to death, in a trashcan at the Leipzig airport. She cuts her hair, dyeing it a shade of ashy-blonde that reminds her too much of her mother, and finds the closest person to the airport who'll take her across the border without asking too many questions.

Sharon's thankful for the millions of languages that the Academy had forced her to learn over her four years when she makes it to Poland. Even more thankful to Bobbi for forcing her to actually study them all back when they were roommates there, when she had nothing better to do than rebel and pretend to be braver than she was, braver than she ever has been. She has no idea where she's even going, but she knows that she can't stay in one place, and she can't go home, not yet.

If there's even still a _home_ for her to go to.

* * *

She spends a week in an older woman's apartment in Ukraine, who feeds her and lets her use the shower as many times as she wants without charging Sharon extra. She tells Sharon, in her accented English, about a daughter that's Sharon's age away at university, and Sharon misses her Aunt Peggy like someone cut a hole in her.

Vlada Petrovna makes Sharon tea and feeds her like she thinks Sharon has never eaten before in her life, lunch and dinner and what seems like hundreds of snacks in between. The tea makes her think of Aunt Peggy, how she'd always put milk in Sharon's tea even when Angie wrinkled her nose and said that that was disgusting. ("There's nothing a cup of tea can't fix, love," Peggy used to say. She had made Sharon a cup the day her first boyfriend had broken up with her.)

Aunt Peggy had indulged Sharon's every whim without question, Tony following right along with her, because they were family and that's what family did for one another.

Sharon tries to hold back tears when Vlada Petrovna brings up Sokovia and the Accords. She's a political woman, Sharon's temporary landlord is, despite the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. She's as sharp as the knives that she uses to cook, catches every little movement that Sharon makes, quietly cataloging it and using it, in her own way, to help Sharon heal.

The problem is, Sharon doesn't think she's ever going to be whole again, not in the way that she used to be.

She watches the Ukrainian news every night and thinks about how everything that she's done, everything that the Avengers did, it wasn't in some vacuum. And it wasn't a one-time thing, either. Her heart is torn between Steve and Tony, understanding both sides for wanting to sign the Accords, for the first time in her life not knowing what's _right_.

That third night, two weeks after she'd left Steve with his promises and a jagged, tiny piece of her heart under a bridge in Germany, she watches the news and cries. For herself, for Tony, for Aunt Peggy, for Steve, hell—even for SHIELD. Because when you're in it, when you're there and you're fighting, it feels like you're the only person that exists in the entire world, you and the people around you.

But you're not, _they're_ not, and everything that they did is sending ripples and shocks and aftershocks across the world. Everything that _she_ did. Sharon doesn't even know where they are, where _any_ of them are, not Clint or Vision or Sam or Steve or Tony— _god_ , Tony. He was her person, you know? Before she had Bobbi, before she had Natasha, she had Tony and the family that Aunt Peggy tried to make for them, after Howard and Maria died. She had Tony and she'd felt whole, like a child with a functional family, even if her mother didn't understand her and her father was too oblivious to try.

And now she doesn't even have that. This is what she'd gotten for following her heart over her head, this _mess_ , with no phone and no internet, no contacts to reach out to, to see what happened to the people that were hurt; no trying to fix it. Without technology and her connections in the CIA, all she does is think, day after day.

It's all she _can_ do now: think. Think about Aunt Peggy, and how disappointed she probably is in Sharon, in the things that she's done. About Bobbi, and SHIELD—what her oldest friend is doing. They haven't spoken in years, not since the fall of the Trisk, but Sharon still thinks about her every day. They'd been such a pair back at the Academy, Agent 13 and Agent 19, roommates, friends, sparring partners.

Bobbi's probably doing her best to repair SHIELD, which is more than Sharon can say for herself. She had felt like such a fraud, showing her face at Peggy's funeral, when she knew full well that she'd fled to the CIA like a coward. She didn't stick around, didn't try to repair what had broken. What her aunt had built, all those years ago.

And she's fleeing again, now, no matter how many times that she tells herself that it's necessary or that she had no other choice.

Sharon turns off the TV and decides that she's tired of running.

* * *

Sharon stays two more days, planning, asking Vlada Petrovna about the different types of transportation here in Ukraine, learning anything she can, before she leaves again. This time, though, she has a destination in mind. This time, she's going to make it right. And if she gets arrested as a consequence, then so be it.

Steve and Tony had risked everything, _everything_ , for what they believed in. The least she can do is exactly the same.

* * *

She makes it back to America in one piece, if not a bit greasy and worse for wear. She'd found a guy, remembering some old contacts of Natasha's, that specialized in creating fake documents. She need a new passport and identification, now that she not only looked different, but needed to become a completely new person. The name that she'd settled on felt symbolic, in a way, a nod to Steve and her work for SHIELD, even though SHIELD means nothing to the world now, not really.

SHIELD is gone, as far as she knows. She'd left and never looked back, no matter how much she wanted to. That's what she's good at, isn't it? Good at cutting people off, good at closing _herself_ off, focusing on the mission and nothing else. What was her mission, now? What was she even trying to do?

Sharon doesn't even know.

* * *

The worker at the gate asks Sharon if she's in America for business or pleasure.

"Business," she tells him, ignoring the way that his eyebrows shove into one other at her dirt-stained face and ratty skirt. He clucks his tongue and stamps her (fake) passport, reading off her (fake) name.

"Welcome to the United States, Kate Dawson," he says, waving her through.

* * *

Sharon doesn't go home, not right away. She doesn't even know if her apartment in DC is still there, after all of this. If the CIA hadn't raided it, looking for her.

She'd landed at JFK with one hundred euros, all that was left of the money she'd managed to pull from her accounts before cutting up her credit cards and throwing away every last piece of identification with her name on it. All that was left after endless drives with handsy cabbies and greedy motel owners.

Everywhere she goes, there's whispers about it. A "Civil War", the media has decided to call it, something that twists Sharon up inside and makes her see red. They really love to do that, don't they? Make things black and white for people. Good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains, even a turncoat traitor (Sharon misses Natasha with her whole heart, wishes there was some way that she could just get in touch with her); "Team Tony" and "Team Steve", as if actual people hadn't _died_ for this. So many innocent people, King T'Chaka and all of those innocents at the UN, countless US soldiers and government agents. Good people, innocent people, and they feasted on it like the harpies that they were.

There's shots of empty holding cells on the TV screens at the airport, front page newspaper articles with Tony and Steve's faces plastered all over them, pieces titled "Where Are The Avengers Now?". Piece by piece, Sharon puts the story together; ties all of the information into a neat little narrative, fills in the gaps of her knowledge after she'd gotten out of Germany. There's a particularly compelling article that she reads by a woman named Karen Page that seems to be a bright star in the sea of filth that the other newspapers and gossip rags spew. It's so simple, so elegantly done, that Sharon wants to meet this Karen girl and give her a huge hug.

Of course there's more to this than two different sides, more than different ideologies at war. She had _lived_ it, had been there to see Barnes' devastated face when he'd been captured. She doesn't think she'll ever forget it, the way that he'd looked, locked up without a single shred of hope in the world.

It's why she needs to do something, to make something right, to find Tony and try to explain herself, try to make things better. She just has no idea how she's going to do it.

* * *

Sharon wanders through Brooklyn that first day, heart clenching as she looks for the street that Steve used to live on. She spends a whole day sitting on the bench in front of his old place, figuring out what to do. She doesn't know how to go about fixing it, fixing this entire thing, trying to find Tony or Steve or anyone, really.

Days go by and she has no place to sleep, sneaks naps on public benches and in libraries. More often than not, Sharon sits in tiny booths in cheap coffee shops and finds herself thinking about Steve, about the way his hands had shook against her back, the smell of sweat and fresh air and something uniquely _him_ that was there when he'd kissed her.

She thinks about how it's partially her fault that he and Bucky and Sam are probably holed up somewhere, moving from place to place with targets on their backs, all because she hadn't listened to her boss. In her defense, the insinuations that Ross had made had been vile, but now that she thinks back on it, he was sort of right. Maybe some part of her did want Steve, and that was why she'd done what she did.

She'll never forgive herself for it, for losing sight of what was important. It had felt right at the time, but what had it led to? Sharon Carter, fake name and all, all alone in New York with no one and nothing to help her.

Steve and Bucky and Sam, somewhere in Europe, maybe lost, maybe hurt, trying to pull themselves back together.

Tony Stark licking his wounds back at Avengers Tower, half of his team gone and his best friend severely injured. She can picture him now, sulking, just like he used to when they were younger. He'd always had a particular proclivity towards brooding, Sharon remembers, and she knows that it's what's made him so attractive to women over the years.

She knows that Rhodey's probably with him. There's no way that Tony would let his best friend suffer on his own, especially after what had happened in Germany.

Especially now that Pepper's gone.

Sharon shakes herself off, clearing her mind of all thoughts of family and emotion, trying to think of her next logical step. She steels herself, counts the meager amount of money left in her pocket, and heads towards Manhattan.

* * *

It seems like the place hasn't changed at all since the last time that Sharon was there, a few months before Aunt Peggy made the decision to move to the home in DC. She remembers the address exactly, burned into her brain from repeating it over and over when she was a toddler: 890 5th Avenue, Manhattan, New York, 10021. The house that her Uncle Howard had given Peggy back after the war, when they were still trying to pull their lives together.

Sharon thinks that that's exactly what she needs, too. A place to figure things out, to find out who she is and what she wants. A place to heal.

Nearing the front of the building, Sharon can see that all of the flowers that Angie had planted around the front and sides of the house have long withered away, the windows slightly rusted. Sharon hopes against hope that the key is in the same place that they'd always left it, hidden under a fake bottom in the mailbox near the front door.

She reaches in, nails digging against the fake bottom and tugging it out. She has to stand up on her tiptoes to see inside, and a sigh of relief leaves her body when she sees the old key there, slightly discolored with age, but safe and sound.

Turning the key in the lock, Sharon steps inside and turns the light on, and—

Freezes instantly. She can tell immediately that something is wrong, even though she hasn't stepped foot in this house in years. The blinds are open, and she knows for certain that Angie hasn't been in in at least a year (she'd passed last December). Something about the place feels _off_ , and Sharon's breath hitches in her throat as she tries to put together the reason why.

Creeping down the main hallway, she pauses near the entrance of each room, flicking her eyes over the old, dusty, covered furniture, the mothballs in the corners, searching for an intruder. The place has been abandoned for a while, but the deed is still in the Stark family name, and Sharon supposes that someone could've found out; a fangirl, someone with not so simple intentions, or worse, Hydra.

She moves towards the large living room, cursing the fact that she hadn't found time to secure a weapon in the days that she's been skulking around New York. A creak in the room makes her stop in her tracks, and she evaluates her options. Looking around, she debates what she can use as a weapon. Angie's mom's old candelabra sits on a table near the entrance to the kitchen and she snatches it up, moving back towards the living room.

Her ratty left sneaker makes a squeak on the hardwood floor and Sharon silently curses, hoping she hasn't given herself away. And that's when the intruder speaks.

"Whoever you are, I'm seriously not in the mood." Sharon's eyes widen, recognizing the arrogance in the voice (and the sass) at once. It's a voice that used to yell at her to get out of his room, and the same one that had read to her from textbooks to help her fall asleep.

" _Tony_?" she yelps in surprise, jumping out of her hiding spot behind the door and into his view.

" _Sharon_?" He looks almost as surprised as she feels. Sharon feels something swoop low in her stomach as she takes a hesitant step closer to him. She doesn't know if he's angry with her, if he ever _was_ angry with her, if he even knows that she's the one that stole Steve's shield and Sam's armor from the government, if—

The breath whooshes out of her chest as Tony, taking three quick bounds towards her, crushes Sharon against his chest and wraps his arms around her. Well. That settles that.

They stand there for what could be hours but is probably minutes, Sharon burying her head against Tony's shoulder, breathing in the familiar metal and gasoline smell of him, the way that she used to when she was a kid and he came back from his workshop after being gone all day. She feels herself shudder, the emotions hitting her like a wave after she's tried so hard to keep them at bay. But now that she's here, now that _he's_ here, she can't help it.

She lets out a small, surprised sob, barely more than a hiccup, and digs her fingers into the back of his t-shirt. Just for a minute, Sharon lets herself shed the tears that she's held back since that night in Ukraine over a month ago. "Hey," Tony says soothingly, "come on, Share-bear, it's okay. Don't cry."

Sharon pulls away from him, hands clutching his shoulders. She doesn't miss the way that he flinches when she does it, so she lightens her grip, painfully aware of what he's been through. Studying his face, which is now blessedly free from any bruises, she asks him, suspiciously, "What are you doing here?"

Tony lets out a soft laugh. "Me? What are _you_ doing here?"

"I had nowhere else to go."

It's quiet. Sharon feels like she can hear her own heart thudding in the silence of the room, waiting for the blow—Tony snapping to his senses, remembering what she'd done, ready to kick her out of his father's old home.

"Where _were_ you, Sharon? I looked for you, but I couldn't find you anywhere. I was going out of my mind. Steve sent me a letter—"

"A letter? What did—"

"I'll let you read it later, but where did you—"

It's so easy with with him, it's always been easy. She can't help but crack a tiny smile at the way that they slip back into their old patterns, finishing each other's sentences and immediately understanding what it is that the other is trying to convey.

This next part, however, isn't so easy. Tony had stayed. Tony had fought until the very end, and Sharon had scampered off like a wounded puppy, even though nothing had even happened to her. She thought that she could handle it, but she'd been so lost. She had told Steve that she would be okay, but she wasn't, _none_ of them were. She doesn't even know where to start, how to explain it to him. "I don't—in Europe. I was in Europe. I didn't know where to go, I thought you were mad at me, I thought I ruined everything. I don't… I don't know," she finishes lamely. "I was so scared."

That was it, wasn't it? What she had refused to admit to herself, to admit to anyone. They let go of each other, Tony inspecting her for injuries in the same way that she had done for him. That was what family did: they looked out for each other. They always did.

"I don't even know why I'm here," Tony starts. "I just thought, if there was even a small chance that you could be here, I had to try. I can't believe you're actually here, that we actually ended up here after everything." A beat. "Come back with me," he tells her. "To Avengers Tower. We're missing half its tenants, anyway," he grins, but Sharon can tell that it's halfhearted. It lacks his usual acerbic wit, the joke falling flat.

Still, the offer is tempting. A warm bed, an entire floor to herself, delicious food and a shower whenever she wants them. It's more than she can say of her time overseas.

"So you're not mad?" she asks ruefully, and Tony laughs then, a real, warm laugh. She has a feeling that he probably hasn't laughed like that since Germany. Sharon knows that she hasn't. Tony reaches over and ruffles her hair, and for a second, Sharon's transported back in time to this same room, twenty years ago.

Aunt Peggy and Uncle Gabe cuddling on the couch, Aunt Angie baking cookies in the kitchen, and Sharon and Tony coloring on the rug, the fire blazing. Sharon had had Tony wrapped around her finger back then, she knows that now, but at the time she'd adored him, had felt so special whenever he agreed to do whatever it is that she wanted. She doesn't think she had a single bad thought about him until she was at least thirteen.

"I was never mad at you, Sharon," Tony says. "I don't know why you did what you did, but I know you, and I know you had a good reason for it." He pauses, reaches over to tug on a strand of her shorter curls. "That hair, on the other hand…"

Sharon snorts, smacking his hand away from her face. She lets out a sigh, tucking her arms into her armpits, a stance that makes her feel warm and safe in the cold, empty home. "Can you believe it?" she asks him, "A Stark and a Carter in this place again."

Tony's eyes are sad when they meet her own, but he manages to throw her a weak smile. "We're the only ones left." Sharon bites her lip, looks down at the floor. It's surreal to be back here, to think that she has a connection to a place as filled with history as this house is.

"You really want me to come with you?" she asks him, her shoulders still sense, as if she can't believe that he'd so quickly forgive her after everything.

"Don't be stupid, Share-bear, of course I do. Let's go home."

* * *

would it even be a fic by me if it didn't involve tony/sharon moments? probably not. there'll be more steve in the next chapter, i promise. this is more of a prologue chapter, the real action starts in the next one. i can't promise regular updates, since i'm in school, but i'll try my best. please let me know what you think of this!


	2. Chapter 2

i have no excuses besides school sucks and i'm lazy. also YES i quoted niall let me live that song had me shook for like 3 weeks ok

* * *

Drive highways and byways to be there with you,

Over and over, the only truth:

Everything comes back to you.

\- Niall Horan, This Town

* * *

It's Tony's idea, which of course means that no one knows that it's Tony's idea.

The government is eager to sweep things under the rug, as ever. Sharon had been so afraid, so scared that this was it, this was the time that she broke the rules for good and didn't get out of it scot free. In high school she'd had her mother to defend her—her strict, prim and proper mother, but her mother that loved her nonetheless.

Sharon finds herself thinking about Amanda more often than not these days, and it feels like an open wound. It serves Sharon right, she supposes, to have so much of the past dragged up. Now more than ever.

Her mother had always (much to Sharon's surprise) had her back, especially when the kids at school started teasing her about Aunt Peggy. It was the first time that Sharon had felt like she'd had something in common with the mother that she thought hated her, that day when Amanda had marched into the principal's office after Sharon's first (and unfortunately not last) fight. She'd taken one look at Sharon's black eye, the bleeding nose of the boy sitting next to her, and defended her daughter immediately, no questions asked. It was a level of loyalty matching any SHIELD agent, needless to say Aunt Peggy.

Afterwards, her mom had driven her to Sonic and bought her a double cheeseburger and strawberry shake (Sharon's favorite) and had asked her what was wrong. Sharon had broken down and told her that the boys tease her about being related to Peggy—about being not pretty enough, not brave enough, just not _enough_.

Sharon had decided to prove them wrong.

As it turned out, Amanda Carter knew a little something about living in Margaret Carter's shadow. And after that day, no matter how bad it got between them, Sharon always knew she could count on her mother. Maybe not to agree with her, or to condone her decisions, but to always love her. To always think that she was enough, even when Sharon herself didn't agree.

Now Sharon had no mother, no Aunt Peggy, and no Aunt Angie, either. She had to sort through her messes on her own. And what had she done? She'd run. Steve had told her that the CIA would come for her, and Sharon ran, and she knew that she wouldn't get away with it. There was no way. It was too big, too much, a hit to the agency from more than one angle. Everett Ross had been on Sharon's case for so long, had constantly second guessed her and taunted her and been a pain in her ass—was she so wrong to think that he'd never let it go? She was only following the evidence towards its logical conclusion.

Still, Tony had come through, in that way of his that he always did. The second that Sharon started to think she had no one in her corner, he proved again what an amazing friend he was. What an amazing _person_ he was.

* * *

For all her faults, Sharon was a pretty good researcher. She'd always hated how tedious it was, preferring her practical training at the Academy, but Melinda always told Sharon what a natural talent she had for digging up intel. It had made Sharon proud that her SO saw something in her, and even prouder that she still remembered what she'd learned all those years ago. (Maybe it had come in handy, after all. Maybe she _had_ helped Steve, in her own way, as much as she could. _Or maybe_ , the horrible part of her brain thinks, _you just caused him more pain_.)

After he'd gotten her settled in at the Tower (giving her the twelfth floor because for all of his virtues, Tony was surprisingly more than a little bit superstitious—he refused to give the Tower a thirteenth floor, which had made her laugh when he'd told her) Sharon started digging.

She finds the videos easily, almost everything that she had missed when she'd been traversing Europe. Spider-boy, or Spider-man, or Spiderling, whoever he was. Tony's new protege, who he conveniently forgot to fill her in about. It helps that Vision is there, of course, to help her understand the whole story, no matter how odd it is that he sounds exactly like JARVIS.

Of course Sharon confronts Tony about it. She wouldn't be a good agent if she didn't, and a worse friend besides.

Their conversation goes a little bit like this:

"Tony," Sharon says seriously, although it's hard to be serious when this entire thing seems so much like a joke, "did you adopt a child?"

Tony rolls his eyes. "No, Sharon, I didn't adopt him." An idea springs to her mind, then, not impossible but highly likely, knowing his past. She tries to be as polite as she can about it.

"Is he… _yours_?" Some sort of retaliation post-Pepper (who Sharon is still trying to work on winning back, by the way, universe; so don't think that ship has sailed), someone for Tony to focus all of his misguided feelings onto so that he does't have to think about her. Some long-lost son, is that it?

"God, Sharon, he's not mine. Is that what you think of me? That I have a bunch of children running all over the country like some iron-Ned Stark?"

"Not exactly. But you did have your moments, you know, when you were young and stupid."

"Hey," he warns, but she can tell that he's teasing, "I'm still young."

"Still stupid, too." Sharon grins at the mock outrage on his face.

"Brat."

"Old man."

Tony lets out a sigh, lowering his guard for just a minute, just for this woman that he considers a younger sister, _family_. Sharon picks it up right away, the bleariness in his eyes, the genuine worry there. "So are you going to do it?"

Sharon nods. She knows that he needs her help, for whatever reasons that he doesn't want to divulge right now. She'd never begrudge him anything, even this, even going back to high school. "Of course I will. You know that. You might have to convince the CIA, though. They don't have a great track record of listening to me."

"Just… watch him, okay? Make sure he's safe. I'll handle the CIA."

* * *

Another undercover job, of course. Sharon's starting to think that this is all that she's good for. But she had made a promise, and she intended to keep her word.

After what feels like a thousand different meetings, endless paperwork, and more than one tantrum from Tony where he threatens to leave the Avengers forever, Sharon Carter is once again Kate Dawson (the name that she'd chosen while she was Steve's next door neighbor, mostly because of her affinity for _Dawson's Creek_ , if she's being honest), now newly minted vice-principal of Midtown High School in Queens. Regardless of the fact that she has no experience, she should add. It's all a bit trippy. Especially for the fact that, despite all of his posturing, Tony has no idea where the rest of the Avengers are, besides Vis and Rhodey, for obvious reasons.

Sharon knows that it was Steve who broke them out of the facility, but she has no way of knowing where they are now. She hasn't called Steve for a variety of reasons, but most of them boil down to this: she knows that he's safe. He can take care of himself; has been for years since she came along. Tony had shown her the letter like he'd promised, as well as the phone that came with it. Even then, Sharon hadn't been able to force herself to make a move.

Just like Tony has his reasons for not reaching out to the rest of the Avengers and trying to get them back, Sharon has her own for not being able to call Steve. She finds herself wandering down to Tony's office countless nights over the summer, just sitting in the chair and staring at the damn phone, trying to force herself to pick it up, to do _something_. And every time, she ends up going back to bed empty handed, without results.

She does call Pepper, though, multiple times. Begs on Tony's behalf, tries to get Pepper to see that Tony had done what he'd promised. He'd taken responsibility for his actions, had grown up, had done the right thing. Or, at least, what he thought was the right thing. He was just trying to keep people safe, like he always was. Pepper had to see that.

Most of the time, Pepper doesn't answer. Other times, Sharon sits on the phone with her for hours, trying to figure out what to do, mostly sitting there in silence, both of them just listening to each others' breathing, content knowing that at least they were both alive, both safe. Pepper had never been family in the realest sense, but Sharon considered her so anyway. Maybe she never married Tony, but she'd been his in the way that _mattered_ : they trusted each other, they made each other happy, and they kept each other safe.

Sharon was glad for Pepper, no matter where she was, and always would be. Virginia Potts was an extraordinary woman. Now, if only she could convince the same extremely _stubborn_ woman to take Tony back.

"It's not that simple, Sharon," Pepper tells her countless times. "It's complicated."

Sharon sighs. " _Star Wars_ is complicated, Pep. This is simple. You love him, he loves you, end of story. You're meant to be! Soulmates, even!"

A laugh from the other end. "I'm glad to see you still have so much faith in us."

"Pepper, I just want you to be happy, you know that, right? Even if you guys don't get back together, at least make up. I hate seeing Tony so miserable. All he does is wallow around the house and sing sad ballads. I'm sick of it. And now I don't even have JARVIS to make fun of him with me." Not that Vision isn't sweet, in his own way. He just has a bit of trouble understanding normal human customs. (Which is fine. Tony's exactly the same way.)

Pepper's quiet for a long while on the other end. "He's really empty-nesting, huh?" she asks. Sharon bites her lip, fighting back a smile. She can tell that Pepper's trying to cover up her feelings with humor, and Sharon knows exactly where she got that tactic from.

"Big time. You'd think that Rhodey and I are pieces of lint, he misses the team so much. And _you_. He misses _you_." Another sigh. Sharon takes it as a good sign.

"I'll think about it, okay, Sharon? But no promises."

Sharon has to hang up as fast as she can to stop herself from squealing.

* * *

Ross has a field day being her handler again. Even if the rest of the government and CIA had forgotten her past, shall we say, indiscretions, Ross definitely hadn't. He's all over her from the second that she gets her assignment, canvassing every inch of the school, setting up cameras and microphones in her office, _literally_ picking every inch of her wardrobe.

Tony doubles over when he sees her in her new getup, the farthest thing away from sexy high school principal that a girl can get, in Sharon's opinion. He insists on taking pictures for "photographic evidence", he tells her, but Sharon snatches his phone out of his hands and stomps on it while he's leaking tears out of his eyes from laughing too hard, and that's really the end of that conversation.

The end of summer starts to drag, and Sharon finds that she's actually starting to look forward to her new job. It may not be exciting, or different than what she's used to, but she's tired of _waiting_. She spends her days and nights wandering the Tower, spending time in the gym, lounging around the movie theater in her sweatpants, annoying Rhodey, trying to teach Vision how to cook.

She doesn't know what to do with herself anymore. She scours the internet for any hint of the rest of the team, for Natasha, hell, for Banner or Thor. A god can't be _that_ hard to hide, right? At least not here on Earth.

"You should really stop pacing," Rhodey says from his position on the treadmill. Tony's helping him, silent, mind working a mile a minute on some new project that he refuses to tell her about. Always working, both of them, even when they should be relaxing.

Sharon lets out a dramatic sigh, flopping down on the couch next to Vision and searching for the TV remote. She's already binged three different shows this summer, and she's _bored_. It's been years since she's been bored, but with everyone scattered around different ends of the globe, there's literally nothing left for her to do. There's no threat for her to prep against, no paperwork that needs to be done, no orders, and no contact from anyone that could be helpful.

"You're one to talk, Mr. I Want To Finish My PT Three Months Ahead Of Schedule," she chides him.

Vision pipes in, "I think James' efforts to get better are quite admirable, actually." Sharon grins at him. She wholeheartedly agrees, her admiration for James Rhodes a growing thing, an accumulation of awe and respect that had started when she'd first met him, back when Tony started at MIT.

Tony doesn't acknowledge her joke, even when Rhodey snorts, which means that he's in rare form tonight. Like the week before he'd gotten into MIT, all quiet and broody, refusing to talk to anyone. Sharon knows the feeling, is feeling the same thing, if only expressing it differently. She's jittery, anxious to get started at Midtown. She's been desperate for some type of movement, something to do, ever since she got settled in at the Tower. She's never been good with sitting still and life passing her by, and Tony's always been the same. It's almost annoying, their incessant need to help, but she wouldn't have it any other way.

"It'll be okay, Tony," she says, attempting to snap him out of it. "I'll go to work on Tuesday, and I'll watch the kid, and we'll find the team, and all the rest of it. Want me to run through the plan again?"

"No," Tony sighs, helping Rhodey off of the treadmill and over to the couch to the left of the one she's sitting on. "I know you'll be fine. Just tell me if he does anything stupid." They're on the third floor, one that hadn't been assigned to anyone on the rest of the team before the Accords. Sharon figured she needed all the luck she could get at this point, and three was the closest she could get to thirteen.

"Which he inevitably will," Sharon adds, "because he's a teenager." She has a thought. "How old are you now, Vis, by the way? You feeling any teen angst yet?"

He tilts his head at her, processing, and then smiles. "Not yet, Ms. Carter, but I'll be certain to let you know when I do." Sharon laughs at that, a real laugh, something that she's been doing more and more lately. It had been hard, right after Germany, to find things to smile about. But being here, being around these people, her _friends_ , Sharon's starting to feel like her old self again. She knows that she'll never be the same agent she was before Steve's body was dragged out of the Arctic, the woman that had laughed and joked with her fellow agents.

But that didn't mean that she couldn't at least _try_ to be her. She could try to be good again, not so broken. She could try to heal. Even if she would never be the same as before.

Rhodey lets out a yawn, and Sharon teases him for being an old man, and Tony offers to spring for expensive pizza, and Sharon curls up on the couch next to Vision and thinks that she could learn to really love this odd life that she's tangled herself up in.

* * *

The first few weeks at Midtown are, surprisingly, unremarkable. Sharon does her job. No, really. She goes to meetings and gives kids detentions and wears the horrible clothes that Ross picked out for her, no questions asked. The only difference between this being an actual job and an undercover op is the endless amount of paperwork that she has to do after she leaves the school each week, mission reports and checking in with Ross twenty-four seven. If she was anything other than what she was, Sharon would think that Ross had a crush on her, for the amount of time that he forces them to spend together.

As it is, she barely convinces him to get rid of the cameras in her office that make her feel like a trapped animal in a zoo, watched on all sides for eight hours five days a week.

Sharon passes September in boredom, not as bad as over the summer, but not quite better, either. She's too tired to complain, now, with her workload at the school and her extra duties on top of that. Every day when she gets home she changes into workout clothes and spars with Vision, or Tony, or helps Rhodey with his PT, whoever's available at the time. After taking a shower she meets Vision in the kitchen for cooking lessons, or if she's too exhausted she tells him to place an order over the phone and then critiques him on his "human-speak", or so she's started to call it.

She doesn't care about his eccentricities, really, but she does want him to be able to fit in, at least around others who know nothing about him. Sharon knows what it's like to be an outsider, and she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy, let alone someone like Vision. There's the added awkwardness of him sounding exactly like JARVIS that makes her extra protective of him, no matter the fact that he could probably kill her with a well placed sweep of his arm. She knows that he would never do that to her.

Just as Sharon thinks that she's starting to create a routine that works for her, everything of course goes to shit. She starts to think that she might even want a normal life, might want the peace and quiet that she'd hated when she was bored out of her mind wandering the halls of the Tower, and loses it instantly.

It's really not his best disguise. The only reason that it goes unnoticed is because of the endless buzz at Midtown High about Peter, when, two months into the year, new footage of Spider-man surfaces. (Sharon had told Tony all about this, obviously, and he was set to have a conversation with Peter as soon as he could skirt around Ross and find the right moment to do it.)

But really, what kind of janitor has arms like that? And honestly, always with the baseball caps. Sharon has no idea how he'd gotten one with the school's logo on it, anyway, but that isn't the point.

The point is the fact that Steve Rogers isn't a very convincing janitor, and he would most definitely compromise her mission if he was made. The point is… her heart jumped in her chest when she saw him, which was (maybe, possibly) even worse.

Their eyes meet in the crowded hallway, right after the first bell rings, and Sharon gently tilts her head towards her office, motioning for him to follow. The students around offer them the perfect cover, Steve rolling his janitorial equipment (she has no idea where he even got it, honestly, what a nerd) to the door, Sharon quickly shutting it behind them.

She makes for her desk quickly, reaching for a notebook and a pen. She doesn't miss the way Steve's eyes flit down the length of her legs in her new black pencil skirt, but this isn't the time or the place, no matter how amazing it makes her feel. Which is another issue altogether.

"Sorry about the mess," she says, feeling a certain smugness when she sees his eyebrows furrow in confusion. "I'm not really a morning person. Don't know how I managed to knock over the entire coffee pot like that."

On the pad of paper, she writes: _The office is bugged_ , and lifts it up to show Steve. His eyes widen in understanding, and he shuffles around a bit, pretending to make noise. She almost wants to laugh at the comedy of it, like it's not the first time that she's seen him in months. Like she's not actually running her eyes over his entire body, checking for the remnants of bruises or any sort of mark that might've been left over from their time abroad.

When he speaks, it's a rough, gravelly sound that shoots straight down Sharon's spine, heat licking at her stomach. "No problem at all ma'am," he says. "That's what I'm here for." Steve smiles, as if understanding the effect that he's had on her, and reaches for the pen in her hands, their fingertips brushing. She so does not need this right now.

 _We need to talk_. Sharon fumbles for another pen, taking a few seconds to click away at her keyboard to make it sound like she's doing work and not actually having a clandestine meeting with a fake janitor.

 _Not safe here_ , she writes, mind racing through possible meeting places. In the end, she decides that she might as well go for the obvious. It'll be a risk, especially trying to hide it from the boys, but it's the place that Ross and his team are least likely to search. At least that's what she hopes. She scribbles down Peggy's old address and slides the pad over to Steve. _Tonight. 8?_

Steve nods, silently copying down the address onto a sticky note that Sharon had lying on her desk, pocketing it. He walks around her office, making sure that his boots clank as he does it. They're putting on a good show, in Sharon's opinion. She just hopes that Ross buys it.

Biting her bottom lip, Sharon adds, _Your disguise sucks, by the way_. Steve's eyes crinkle at the corners, and Sharon has to look away, typing more fake words on her desktop. It's been months since she's seen that smile. She didn't know that a smile was something that was possible to miss.

 _I'll be there_. He pauses, catching her eyes, and quickly writes, _Yours is great. I'd love to be sent to the Vice Principal's office any day._

Sharon rolls her eyes but smiles anyway, shaking her head at him. This is a dangerous game that they're playing, but it's worth it, just for the look in his eyes. "Thank you," she says, maybe a bit too loudly, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. "I'll try not to have any more accidents like this in the future."

"It's no problem. Cleaning up messes is my job." Cheeky bastard. He winks at her and leaves, dragging his janitorial equipment behind him, and Sharon has a smile on her face for the rest of the day.

* * *

Seeing him again is a punch to the gut. It doesn't matter that she knows he's coming, that they planned this only hours before.

Without the students, without the microphones in her office, it's just Steve and Sharon and she feels like she can't breathe, all alone in this huge house with him at the front door.

She'd snuck out of the Tower and felt like a teenager all over again, climbing through her window in the middle of the night and hiding from her parents, trying to keep her movements extra secretive. She knows that Vision saw her leave, but she knew that he wouldn't say anything. He probably thought she was out to see a guy, which was, in a way, true. It just feels different now, because of the circumstances. Because now, she knows at least twenty different counter maneuvers for being tracked, and three of them included colored eye contacts.

The first thing that she sees when she opens the door of the old mansion twenty minutes after her hasty escape is Steve wearing a black hoodie, hands stuffed in his pockets. His face lights into a smile when he sees her. He reaches a hand out, almost as if to touch her, but reconsiders and rests it on the doorframe.

"Hey," he says.

"Hi."

Sharon fights back a laugh at how ridiculous she's being, all nerves and fluttery hands, and moves aside to let him in. It's dark as he follows her through the house, shadows being cast by the various dusty paintings, vases, and abandoned chests of drawers. The electricity bills haven't been paid in years, but she'd set out a decent amount of candles in the living room along with lighting the fireplace, and set out a few in the hallways, enough to be able to see where she's headed. She leads Steve towards said living room, silently cursing herself for suddenly feeling so awkward in his presence.

"I hope this is okay," Sharon finally says as both of them have settled on the couch. "It's a really old building." They're not too close, but she can still feel the heat radiating off of him. Steve's taken off his hoodie to reveal a simple black t-shirt underneath, and she can't stop looking at his arms. For obvious reasons, sure, but also because of the scars still healing there. She wonders if he has them anywhere else, if he's still hurting from what happened in Germany.

Knows that some scars aren't physical, and take much, much longer to heal.

Steve gives her a small smile. "It's fine. Let's just try to not burn it down." Sharon huffs out a laugh through her nose. Steve and his corny jokes. She clears her throat, trying not to stare at the way that the light cast by the candles cast shadows around his face, lighting him up like some sort of painting. Sharon's never been poetic, but god, his profile could turn her into Keats if he wanted it to.

"Is anyone else coming tonight?" she asks, desperate for a distraction. Talking about work is easy, simple. She knows how to talk shop. Feelings, not so much. Especially potentially unrequited feelings.

Steve shakes his head. "Didn't want to risk it. Sam flew in with me, but he's settling a few things back home. I didn't want to drag him into anything until I knew for certain that I'd find you. Nice cover, by the way," he adds, grinning.

Sharon bites her lip. She wants to tell him that it was Tony's idea, but she doesn't know how he'll react. How volatile their relationship is right now, if there's still any hard feelings left over. She doesn't know Steve to be completely unforgiving, but she knows his temper, knows that he can sometimes hold a grudge, not that she's blaming him.

"What about Bucky?" she asks, tucking her left leg underneath her. From the way that his eyebrows jut together, she can tell that it isn't good. The last time she'd seen Barnes, he'd been in Steve's getaway car with Sam. Something went wrong, then. She didn't get to them fast enough? "Is he—I mean, is everyone—shit. I guess you might as well tell me everything," Sharon demands, in a no-nonsense tone that she hopes is convincing him as much as she's trying to convince herself. Convince herself that she's being professional, that she's not invested in how Bucky is because he's Steve's friend, and if Steve cares about him then she cares about him.

He looks towards the fireplace, flames dancing along his features. She sees his hands clench into fists on the couch and wants to reach out, place her own on top of his, comfort him. But she doesn't. "So much happened," Steve tells her, hands slowly uncurling. "He wanted to be put back under. We were in Wakanda, all three of us. King T'Challa took us in."

Sharon's mind tries to process the information that he's telling her. "Put back under, as in—"

"Cryo chamber," Steve says. "And he lost his arm again," Steve lets out a pathetic, choked sounding laugh. "Tony blasted it off." A beat, and then, much quieter, "I couldn't help him."

"Oh, Steve," Sharon sighs, sliding closer to him now, not fighting the compulsion to do so. She puts a hand on his thigh, and his gaze snaps to meet her own. "How are _you_?" she asks softly, when he puts one of his hands on top of her own and squeezes.

"It's… hard. I just want to do the right thing," he tells her, and Sharon nods. She knows. It's all any of them ever wanted. "It's all I've ever wanted. And now I just feel… so lost. Sharon," he pauses, gaze flickering across her face, her hair, the rest of her. "I wish… I wish you could've been there."

"Would that have changed anything?" she asks him, quietly.

He shrugs, the movement almost too small for his large frame, but doesn't let go of her hand. "No. But it would've been nice to have you there, anyway." Sharon's mouth flexes in an attempt at a smile. She feels… shy, nervous. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear with her free hand, swallows slightly.

Steve lets go of her hand and his own moves towards her face, towards the stubborn piece of hair that's escaped from behind her ear again. His fingers brush her cheek, twisting her hair around his finger. "It's so different," he murmurs, and Sharon can feel her heart in her chest, the desperate thump thump thump drumbeat of it. "Sharon," he says, and it's just that, just her name, like it's a secret between them. She vividly recalls (has been vividly recalling, night after night since it happened) a moment that seems like a lifetime ago, a warm kiss and a soft, "Thank you, Sharon" whispered against her mouth.

It's the kiss that she goes back to, that _nothing_ kiss, one that had made her heart stutter and threaten to burst our of her chest. And she's had other men before, obviously she has, she's a grown woman, but never like this.

She doesn't know what to say to him, because she doesn't understand it. She's had good sex before. Great sex, even. But there was something about Steve, about the promise that that kiss had given her, that was an entirely new experience.

How is she supposed to tell him that one kiss made her feel more in her entire life than anyone else ever had?

"Steve," she whimpers, because she knows that this has to stop. She, _they_ , can't do this. Not with the question of Tony still lingering in the background, with Bucky frozen in Wakanda, having lost his arm _again_. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to remember this moment, how it feels to just be alone with him. They're almost never alone, and it's like a gift, something that she'll have to hold on to when everything inevitably falls to shit again. "I just… can't." She wants to explain it to him in a way that makes sense, this tangled mess inside of her, but she can't even explain it to herself. All that she knows is that she can't lose him, not him, not when she's lost everyone else besides Tony. And being with him almost guarantees that she will. "Can we just… talk about what happened? Everything. And I'll tell you about where I was after Germany."

"Is that what you want?"

Sharon hesitates, a split second of weakness, but she nods. His hands fall from her face. "Okay," Steve says. "Okay. What do you want to know?"

* * *

\- me, drunk off my ass 30 years in the future: sharon never got the screentime she deserved she was robbed! she'd fit in with the team so well they'd have amazing banter i want to die!  
\- my tony stark loving ass is exposed sorry not sorry  
\- i love angst and pining i'm sorry for the pain  
\- love me


	3. Chapter 3

UM. hello. i am the worst what can i say. i hope this almost 6k chapter makes up for my long absence but it probably won't. enjoy it anyway

* * *

No man is an island, this I know.  
But can't you see,  
Maybe you were the ocean,  
When I was just a stone.  
-Ben Howard, Black Flies

* * *

Sharon wakes up first, squinting against the first rays of sunlight coming through the curtains, letting out a soft yawn. She's usually never the first one awake, hates mornings with the fiery passion of the sun that wakes her up every day, but this time she wakes up naturally, her body (for once) not complaining at the action. At the Academy she always had to be dragged out of bed and into practice, cursing and spitting and whining with every step that she took during their morning runs.

This morning is different, though. Sharon feels oddly… warm, and at peace. Cozy, even, which is certainly new. It's such a stark change from her usual routine, where she more often than not wakes up panting and sweating after some nightmare, watching her Aunt Peggy die over and over, watching the Avengers die and being helpless to stop it, seeing Trip's face or her parents', or even Tony's parents. It's always a variant of that sort, where she's just frozen, screaming and unable to help anyone that she loves.

Her sleep addled brain doesn't think anything of the comfort for a few minutes, and she cuddles into the source of warmth next to her, wanting to steal it all for herself, shivering since there's no heating in the house and the fire is out. Sharon starts when the mass of warmth lets out a low rumble, feeling it through her entire body.

The whole night comes back to her in a rush, the sneaking out and meeting Steve, how they'd stayed awake for hours discussing what he'd done after he left Germany, where Sam was, where the rest of the team was. They hadn't been able to stop speaking, and even as it got into the early hours of the morning, neither of them was tired. It's like Sharon had been energized by his presence alone, not wanting to miss a single second because she didn't know when she'd see him next. She must've fallen asleep before him, because all she can remember is them both yawning and struggling to keep their eyes open, even though they had wanted to stay awake. It's the only explanation she can give for them being so close together. If she'd been conscious Sharon would have insisted on at least sleeping on one of the other couches in the room.

Somehow in the middle of the night Sharon realizes that she must've scooted closer to him, probably around the time when the fire finally died out, in order to keep warm. She runs a shaky hand through her hair, untangling herself from his warm body and searching for her phone. She cringes at the unread messages there, some from Tony asking where she is, an angry email from Ross wondering where her latest report is. The time reads 5:55 AM, and she has to be at work by 7:30. She debates waking Steve up but doesn't have to, because he starts to stir next to her, large limbs dwarfing the small space, arms tightening and hands searching before his eyes are even open, probably reaching for her. Sharon doesn't want to think about what that means or how it makes her feel.

Sharon thinks that she should look away, doesn't want to have the image of what Steve looks like right after he's woken up, sleepy and rumpled, stored in her memory so that she can access it later when she's lonely. She doesn't want to know what he looks like when he blinks himself awake, how he looks around to take in his surroundings, so keen and alert just seconds after opening his eyes. And she definitely doesn't want _this_ , the way that her body responds when his eyes finally land on her own, a hesitant smile tugging at his lips as he looks at her, like he doesn't want to scare her off. God, she's a horrible person. She really, really is.

"G'morning," Steve says, voice rough and textured with sleep, and Sharon doesn't need the tug in her stomach, the way that her body responds to it as if they're waking up together for different, more intimate reasons. Her shoulders tense up, as if she can rebel against her own thoughts, protect her heart by pretending that she has no attraction to him whatsoever. She tells herself that it's working, even if her heartbeat has sped up like she's running a mile.

"Hey," she murmurs back, unable (or unwilling) to break the morning silence, wanting to keep things safe, quiet, for just a little while longer. For the first time in her life, Sharon has woken up resenting her chosen profession for reasons other than lack of sleep. A part of her, and she won't admit how large it is, wishes that the entire world could kindly fuck off for a few more hours, just so that she could spend them with Steve. She doesn't want to go to work, doesn't want to answer to Ross, doesn't want to do anything other than stay here in her old childhood home with Steve and see where the day takes them. She wishes now more than ever that they had met under different circumstances, that she hadn't had to lie to him, that she wasn't related to Aunt Peggy, if only so that she would be able to look at him and not think that it was wrong, that she was betraying something by wanting him.

Instead, she has to force herself to swallow, chasing those thoughts away, and starts putting herself together. She has to go back to the Tower for at least a quick shower, and to brush her teeth and change for work, and the longer she stays the more of a chance there is that she'll look like absolute shit when she finally makes it to the school. "I have to go," she tells Steve, biting her lip and looking away, not trusting herself to meet his eyes. "I can't call out unless I want a ton of shit from Ross, and I never told the guys where I was going—"

"Sharon," he says, mouth twitching to one side, like her squirming is amusing to him. Maybe he's not as oblivious about girls as she'd previous concluded, and he knows exactly what he's doing to her by just… being him. "It's fine, go. But I don't have a way to contact you. Do you have a secure phone number? Some way we can meet up? There's only a certain amount of times a guy can pose as a janitor, you know. Especially with my awful uniform." He throws her a wry smile at that, and Sharon can't help but roll her eyes slightly.

Sharon thinks about it, assessing her options. Her phone isn't secure, but she could get a new one. It might be suspicious, though, if she kept having to buy burners, and she doesn't really have the salary to do so anyway. "Can we just—meet here?" she asks him. "I know it's not the best plan, but besides stealing that phone that you gave Tony, there's not really anything I can do. Unless you could get into my office and sneak me messages there, but even that's risky."

Steve closes his eyes for a second, rubbing a hand across his forehead, thinking. "Just give me your number," he finally says. "I'll find a way to contact you without it getting traced, so that you don't get in trouble with Ross." He says _Ross_ the way one would say "chronic diarrhea", which Sharon appreciates. "We can even come up with a code. Can you meet me here? Tomorrow night? We can get more done then, and Sam should be back by then, too."

"Okay. Tomorrow at 7, maybe? I feel like we didn't…" she trails off, doesn't want to sound like an idiot, but he finishes the sentence for her.

"Have enough time," he says, his gaze focused solely on her. Sharon nods, chest achy. She looks away, getting up to find a something to write with. She doesn't want to think about his serious eyes, the way that he looks at her like she's the only important thing in the universe, let alone the room that they're in. Nope, not today, thank you. She finds some old pens in a cabinet drawer, but no paper. She hadn't brought any with her, either.

"I can't find any paper," she tells him. "Can I just—" she gestures at his hand, fully aware of how much time is passing, the fact that she really needs to leave if she's going to get to work on time.

"Go for it."

God, holding hands really shouldn't be this intimate, but fuck her if she doesn't feel goosebumps when she curls her fingers around his arm, tilting his right hand towards her. She scribbles her number there, slowly, because she doesn't want to let go. She doesn't know what it is that she's feeling, this mess inside of her, but she knows that she has to leave. She has to leave or it'll be too much, too soon, and she's not ready, not for any of it.

"I have to—I have to go," she mumbles, tearing herself away from him. "I'll see you tomorrow. Say hi to Sam for me." She's already halfway out the door when she hears him call after her.

"Goodbye, Sharon."

* * *

She runs into Tony in her rush to get into the shower, literally. It's still dark at the Tower—Tony wakes up late most days, Vision keeps to himself, and Rhodey wakes up for PT an hour after Sharon's already left for work—when she steps off the elevator on her floor and crashes into him. None of them need to keep high school hours like she does, so she thought she'd be safe. But then she remembers the messages, knows how it must've felt for Tony when she didn't come home at night. She wonders if Vision ratted her out, but decides against it. He knows, or at least she hopes he does, that she'd never just _leave_. Sharon wants to think the same of Tony, but he doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to people leaving.

Sharon feels a pang in her chest as Tony reaches out his arms to steady her, warm and comforting, and she feels like she used to when she was just a kid, sneaking into his room in Peggy's old place at night whenever she had nightmares.

"Sharon," Tony says, and his voice is gruff with sleep. He sounds so… tired. That's the only word for it. Physically and mentally exhausted. "Where have you been?" The way he says it reminds Sharon of her conversation with Pepper, and she thinks that maybe Pepper hadn't been too far off when she'd called it "empty nesting". Half of his team is gone, Pepper is gone, and then Sharon had gone and done what she did.

Sharon thought that she was past it, past lying to the people that she loves, but here she is again in the same situation. How can she tell Tony where she's been? He'd definitely want to turn Steve in, she knows that he would, no matter Sharon's feelings about it. He'd want to do the right thing, but Sharon still had no idea what Steve wanted to do. She wanted to hear Steve out, at least, before she made a decision. Before she changed her life completely. It was like her heart was being torn in two pieces, splitting between what she knows she should do and what she _wants_ to do. It had never been a problem, before, because she always ignored what she had wanted.

But with Steve it's just… it's _different_. There's something so compelling about him, this magnetic pull that she doesn't know how to fight, something that makes her willing to follow him into battle no matter what. She'd probably follow him to the ends of the earth if he'd only ask, and the force of her feelings for him, this tug inside of her to just… be with him, it terrifies her. She doesn't know if this is what it's like, what love is supposed to be like. She wants to have some sort of free will, but when she's around him she feels like she's fighting gravity itself.

She bites her lip, curling her arms around herself. Just a few more days, she thinks, and then she'll tell Tony the truth. She owes him that much, at least, after everything. "I was just… out," she mumbles, feeling very much like a scolded teenager again.

"Out," Tony repeats, raising an eyebrow. It's too early in the morning for him to be making jokes, which makes Sharon feel that much worse. "With a guy?" he asks.

"Yeah." It was a variation of the truth, at least.

"And you spent the night?"

Sharon lets out a huff, embracing the role. "I'm not a kid anymore, Tony. I can spend the night with a man if I want to."

"Right," he says, crossing his arms over his sleep t-shirt, "but you haven't, not till tonight. Is it serious? Are we going to meet him?"

"God, Tony, _no_. I just needed a night to myself. Is that so bad?" His gaze moves over her face, searching for something, and Sharon hopes that he can't see the lie in her eyes.

"No," he finally says, "of course not." He pauses for a second, reaching out to touch her arm. "But you can… you know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

Sharon nods, swallowing the lump in her throat. "I know," she tells him. "Of course I know that. I just… sometimes I need… I don't know. I need to to be by myself. Sometimes it's all just too much."

Tony nods, and of course he knows how it feels. She just wishes it was different, that everything was different. Sharon wants to take a nap that last at least three days, to bury her head in the sand until life blows over. But she can't, so she gives Tony a wan smile and makes her way to the bathroom and into the shower.

Sharon scrubs furiously at her body, as if she can permanently wash last night off of her skin. Which is useless, because there's no way that she can forget it now that it's happened. Her body will never let go of what it felt like to be wrapped in Steve's arms, to wake up next to him, to feel the heat of his morning gaze focused solely on her. She turns the water even hotter, needing to feel the burn until it almost hurts. Letting herself breathe one last pathetic sigh, Sharon steps out of the shower and forces herself to get dressed and ready for work. Then she forces herself out the door, into her government-appointed vehicle, and forces herself to stop thinking about Steve Rogers.

* * *

Of all the people that Sharon could have been expecting to see at Midtown, Everett Ross was not one of them. It only goes to show how off her game she's been that she'd completely forgotten about the emails he'd left for her, the insistent and slightly condescending tone of them grating on her nerves the second that she started to read them in the parking lot.

He never completely trusted her, not when she was hired, and especially not after he started suspecting her of secretly helping Steve. He had been wary of her from the start because she'd been SHIELD, and the suspicion had only gotten worse from there. It hadn't really been anything worse than she was used to, but it was annoying. Just because he was right about her sneaking behind the government's back, it didn't make him immune from being an annoying alpha male. It's not that he was shady, or that he said anything overtly rude to her, but Sharon knew that he didn't respect her.

Everett Ross didn't see her as an equal, definitely because of her past, and possibly because she was a better agent than him, and he was always checking up on her when she didn't need him to. In his defense, he did have a right to be suspicious. She _was_ hanging out with a known fugitive, and she _did_ sneak government secrets to Steve and Sam back in Berlin. But, in her defense, it was Captain freaking America. She knew that she was doing the right thing, no matter how bitter Ross ended up being about it.

"Agent Carter," he greets her the second that she unlocks her office. She almost jumps at the sight of him sitting in the chair in front of her desk, calm and poised like he'd been waiting for her. He gives her a polite smile, and Sharon tries not to cringe back. She really hates morning people. It's also odd, even after all this time, to have people address her as Agent Carter. That had been Aunt Peggy's old title, and Sharon feels like she's stealing it, somehow. She'd gotten so used to going by Agent Thirteen back at SHIELD that this new title, alongside her new persona, makes her feel like a completely different person. She's Agent Carter, she's Vice-Principal Dawson, she's anything and everything but herself.

"Agent Ross," she answers, hopefully just as politely, and takes a seat at her desk, turning the computer on. "How can I help you today?" She tries not to fidget, remembers everything that Melinda had taught her about body language. She is calm, and confident, and not at all guilty of anything.

"You haven't handed in your most recent report," he tells her, steepling his fingers. He raises an eyebrow, expectant, "I thought I'd check in on how things are going."

"I really do apologize," Sharon offers him. She doesn't want an argument, doesn't want another confrontation like the one that she'd had with Chapman in Germany. As much as she hates authority, she does know how to follow the rules. "But nothing's changed here. I don't know how many months in a row I can write a different version of the same report before we both get tired of reading them. Peter's doing fine, he's a good kid. A teenage boy, but a good kid. I promise I'll notify you immediately if anything's changed."

Ross nods, looking pleased. Sharon lets out a soft sigh, glad that she'd avoided conflict. It was too early for her, and she hadn't gotten much sleep, no matter how good the amount of sleep that she _did_ get was.

"I guess it's not the most exciting of posts," Ross comments, and Sharon can tell an olive branch when she's on the receiving end of one. She gives Ross a tiny smile, typing in her computer password. "Not as exiting as posing as Captain America's neighbor, I'll bet."

Sharon ignores the flutter in her stomach at the mention of Steve, opens up her email to give her hands something to do. "Government work can't always be spying and shootouts," she laughs, and Ross smiles at her in return. "If I'm being honest, I kind of like the change of pace."

"Not missing the field, then?" he asks her, and Sharon shrugs.

"Maybe a little. But I think we all need a break every once in a while."

Nodding, Ross gets up from the chair, straightening his tie and heading towards the door. "Well, I won't bother you any longer. Thank you for being so compliant. You really are doing good work for us, Agent Carter. Please keep it up." He pauses, hand on the doorknob. "And don't worry about this report. Just make sure you have one for me in a month's time."

At that, Sharon gives him a genuine, surprised smile. "Thank you, Agent Ross."

He tips his head towards her in response and leaves the room.

* * *

Somewhere around lunch Sharon's phone rings, making her jump. She'd been in a daze all day, falling asleep half of the time and forcibly trying to wake herself up the other the other half. There seemed to be a lack of misbehaving teenagers for her to deal with, too, so she'd mostly just been staring at her computer screen, scrolling through her emails and wanting to answer them, but not really having the energy to do so.

There's a lot of emails from angry parents, almost all of them complaining about Sharon taking disciplinary action against their children, and then some from the teachers, complaining about her _not_ taking disciplinary action against _their_ students. She's glad for any reprieve that she can get from the endless monotony of having this boring, fake job, even if it is fun to not get her ass kicked on a daily basis.

"Hello?" she breathes into the phone, hating herself for sounding so eager, but it was an unknown caller that had flashed on her screen, and there was only one person that that could be.

"Kate, hi," Steve answers back, and Sharon has to bite back a smile because he's already using code with her. "Are we still on for dinner tonight? 7?" It's incredible how both of their lies involve some sort of romantic relationship—she'd told Tony that she was with a guy, and now Steve was setting up a fake date for them. Leave it to SHIELD agents to resort to the most obvious trick in the book. Sharon doesn't know how many times over the years that she's seen Phil and Melinda resort to fake dating when going undercover.

Sharon makes sure to keep her voice steady as she answers him. "It's a date," she tells him. She feels a twinge of regret that it isn't a real one, though. She hasn't been on an actual date in years, not a serious one, with dresses and wine and fancy restaurants. But Sharon had come to terms long ago with the fact that she was never going to have a normal life—kids, a relationship, love, even—none of that was in the cards for her. The knowledge settles inside of her chest, now, as if she's accepting it for the first time. Steve is saying something on the other end that she doesn't quite catch.

"Sorry, what'd you say?" she asks, and gets a soft chuckle in response.

"I asked if you wanted me to bring anything."

Sharon thinks it over. Wine would be nice. She always likes to have a glass after work, especially if it's a busy day. More often than not she resorts to brooding with Tony over glasses of whiskey, which Morning Sharon never appreciates, even if Evening Sharon is having a blast.

"Don't worry," she tells him. "If I think of anything I'll bring it myself."

"Good," he says on the other end. It's silent, then, Steve letting out an awkward cough, and yet neither of them hangs up. "I'll see you tonight, then."

"Great! See you then." Sharon hangs up quickly, hating the perky tone that her voice had taken on. She probably might have overdone it, but she can't bring herself to care.

* * *

Sharon is attempting to sneak out of the house again that night, having changed into a warm sweater and jeans on her way out the door, when she runs into Tony for the second day in a row. Rhodey had been called out into a meeting in D.C. that morning, so she wasn't going to see him until at least Friday, and she'd seen Vision earlier to tell him that she couldn't make it to his cooking lessons that day. He'd been almost visibly disappointed, which had been new, considering how even-keeled and calm his responses usually were. Maybe he really was entering his teenage phase.

He'd just patted her on the shoulder, also new but not unwelcome, considering she was helping him understand the essence of physical contact for social relations, and said: "Not to worry, Ms. Carter. I'm sure I'll find some way to occupy my time until tomorrow." To which she had awkwardly replied, "Uh, you do that, Vis."

Tony's in a bathrobe, his usual sulking attire, and he seems to be on his way to her room when she runs into him in her living room. The floors in the Tower are all pretty uniform, besides the special rooms like the training center—the elevators opening up to reveal large living rooms and kitchens, a hallway leading to the bathroom and multiple bedrooms.

Tony just blinks when he sees her, keys in hand, obviously ready to head out. "You're going out again?" he asks, not angry, but more annoyed. It was obvious that he wanted to have one of their nightly bitch sessions, and Sharon feels a throb of guilt for leaving him for the second night in a row. Feels even worse that she's not telling him the entire truth at that.

"Sorry," she tells him, sincerely meaning it. "I have plans."

"Why do I feel like a pathetic stay at home dad?" Tony sighs, heading towards the kitchen and plopping his glass on the counter.

"If it makes you feel any better," Sharon offers, "Vision seems like he's entering his rebellious phase. So it's like you have a kid after all."

Tony snorts, rifling through her fridge. "That absolutely does not make me feel better. Will you at least bring me back leftovers?" he asks, looking up from her pathetically stocked refrigerator shelves. "You're going on a date, right?"

"I—" Sharon doesn't know how to protest without lying. "Yes. A date. That is where I'm going."

"Okay, weirdo. Have fun, I guess."

Sharon pauses for a second. "You should call Pepper, Tony. She'd like hearing from you." She bites her lip. "I think she misses you more than she might let on." Tony meets Sharon's eyes, and she can see it there, written all over his face. He loves Pepper so, so much, more than Sharon thinks that she could ever love anyone. "Don't give up on her."

"It's me that I'm worried she's given up on," Tony sighs, leaning against her kitchen counter. "I'll be okay, kid. You go live your life."

"Don't wait up for me," she tells him before getting into the elevator. The last thing she sees is the way that he stares down into the bottom of his empty glass, looking more tired than she's ever seen him.

* * *

The door's open when Sharon makes it to Peggy's place, which goes completely against all of the protocol that SHIELD had drilled into her over the years, but Sharon decides to let it slide. This meeting is supposed to be the time for them to figure out all of these technical things, anyway.

She hears warm voices coming from the same living room that she'd shared with Steve last night. It had only been a day ago, but Sharon feels like it's been a lifetime, like the course of her life had been altered by a single meeting, and she had no idea where it would go from there.

It's surprising, when she finally sees them, how _right_ it feels. Sam and Steve in her Aunt Peggy's old house, the fire burning, Sam making a joke that makes Steve laugh, a big, full body affair. Sam looks up and catches her eye and Sharon smiles, making her way over to him. Before she knows what she's doing she envelops him into a hug.

It should be weird, but it isn't, because Sam hugs her back just as tightly and says, "Hey, girl. Long time no see."

"Sam," Sharon's grinning so wide she can barely take it, smiling up at him as she lets go. "I'm so glad that you're okay."

"Back at you."

Sharon looks at Steve, then, and her stomach tightens. She should be used to it by now, the way that her body responds around him, but each time it feels brand new, like she's seeing him for the first time. She doesn't think she'll ever get used to it. She makes her way over to the end of the couch that she'd slept on yesterday, leaving room for Sam to sit between them. She doesn't know if she can trust herself, yet, to sit next to Steve without wanting to kiss him.

"Is everything okay, then?" Sharon asks Sam when he sits down, wanting to know more about what happened from his own perspective. "Everything back in D.C.?"

"Everything's settled," Sam explains. "My house was trashed when I got there, but I managed to get everything I needed. I had all my cards cancelled, all my bills. Pretended to be my brother on the phone to do it."

"Do you even have a brother?" Sharon asks him.

"No." They both laugh.

"Sharon," Steve says, more in Captain America mode than before, which makes Sharon realize that things are getting serious, that he wants to get right into the planning.

"Before you say anything," she interrupts, "can we make up all the codes and stuff beforehand? Just so that we're all on the same page. Like the door being open, that can't be a thing. This is an old house, but anyone could walk in on us if they wanted to."

"What do you suggest?" Steve asks, genuinely curious. He's watching her like she's some master spy, which she really isn't, but it does make her feel good about herself.

"Put some flowers in the mailbox next to the door. That way I'll know that you're here. And I'll make you both a key and change the locks. It'll make me feel better, at least."

Steve nods. "Anything else?"

"Maybe you could call me every night, just to check in?" Sharon flushes, thinking of the implications, and quickly adds, "Either one of you. Just so that I know where we are, what's happening. That's all I can think of right now."

"Okay," Steve says, twisting his hands together. "Okay." He nods at Sam, obviously ready for the pitch. Sharon doesn't really need much convincing, but she's interested to hear what he has to say, what kind of plans that he has. She knows, has known for a long time, that he's not the kind of man that's content to do nothing. He needs to help people, to be active, in any way that he can. It's clear from Sam's actions that he's the same way. "I'll start," Steve says, "and you jump in if you think I'm missing something," he tells Sam. "Sam and I have a plan. More of an idea than anything, really, but we want you to be part of it. More than in Berlin. We need you."

Sharon knows that he means in a professional sense, but it makes her heart jump anyway.

"We were thinking of, well," Steve stops, shakes his head at his own idea, almost like he's laughing at himself, "putting a team together." Sharon can't help but laugh at the wording, too, because it's exactly the same thing that Tony had said all those years ago, before the Avengers were formed. "But just… different, obviously, since we're on the run. Not government sanctioned, more… mission by mission? We'd go in, anywhere we can, and try to stop crime. It's not foolproof, but it's all we have so far."

Sharon nods, intrigued. "So we'll be vigilantes, basically," she says, frowning. Not that she's against that, but she'd done things by the book so long that she does't know quite how to feel about it.

"We wouldn't intentionally hurt anyone," Sam tells her. "We'd just help out in situations that need more than the government can give. Terrorism, alien threats, things like that."

"Because the Avengers aren't getting back together anytime soon," Sharon says wryly, which makes Steve's brow crinkle. He looks away for a second, and she knows that she hit a sore spot. "What about SHIELD?" Sharon asks, trying to change the subject and feeling a pang of regret for not thinking of them earlier. She misses her old teammates, the rapport that she used to have with them. Since the Trisk and Rumlow, and since Fury left his position as director, though, she hadn't heard too much about the old organization besides what was in the news.

Sam lets out a sound at that, somewhere between disbelief and confusion.

"They're, uh, otherwise occupied, I guess you could say."

"Oh?" Sharon asks, curious now. Last she heard, SHIELD was making a comeback under the leadership of one Inhuman, Jeffrey Mace. She didn't know how Coulson felt about that, but she can picture her old colleague having some choice words about the position not going to him.

"In space," Sam says, deadpan.

"Well. I've heard worse, I guess. In space? Why are they up there?"

Steve shrugs. "No one's really sure."

"Huh. Maybe they're collecting evidence."

Sam raises an eyebrow. "One can only hope."

"Right." Sharon takes a breath, tries to gather her thoughts. "So how would we get funding? I know a few old SHIELD bases that are off the beaten path that Aunt Peggy told me about, but that doesn't cover equipment. Comms, a quinjet, uniforms. Are we going to have uniforms? Because I have ideas, you know."

Steve laughs, a sound that warms Sharon all over. "I'm sure you do."

"About the funding," Sam starts, raising his eyebrows at them, "I know a guy. Or, I know a guy who knows a guy."

"Oh," Sharon says, teasing. "Cryptic."

Sam flashes her a megawatt smile. She didn't even know that she could miss someone she knew so little about, but she _missed_ Sam Wilson. "Maybe I was being a little dramatic. Anyway, Scott Lang, or… Ant-Man. Awful name. His girlfriend's father, Hank Pym, is sort of this rich guy who doesn't have anything to spend his money on anymore. I think we can get him to sponsor us. It also helps that Hope is sort of a superhero, too."

"Hope Van Dyne?" Sharon blinks, surprised. She hasn't heard the name Pym in years, but it was one that she frequently encountered as a child. She'd never met Hope, but she knew that Hank and Peggy were close.

"You know her?" Sam asks.

"Aunt Peggy used to work with Hank Pym. I don't know Hope personally, but I know of her, and I guess vice versa. She could be an ally."

"That's good," Steve jumps in. "We were thinking of recruiting her, too."

"And Natasha?" Sharon asks. "Have you heard from her?"

"She's definitely a candidate," Steve answers, always the professional. "We just… have to find her."

"Okay," Sharon tells them. "I'm in." It's quiet for a beat, neither of the men not really knowing what to say in response. It's a tenuous plan, one with a lot of moving factors and missing peices, but it feels right to her. She's never considered herself an Avenger, never really wanted to be one. She didn't really think herself worthy of the title. But now, this is something that she can be a part of. "So," Sharon finally says, smiling a little at the idea that popped into her brain. "I guess we're like… Secret Avengers." She tests the name out on her tongue, liking the sound of it. Sam laughs, nudging her shoulder with his, and Sharon feels light, the mood in the room charged with something, the knowledge that they're officially a team now.

"Secret Avengers it is," Sam says.

* * *

i hope you guys enjoyed it! i love writing team dynamics so hopefully that came out okay


	4. Chapter 4

lmao i'm the worst but. here are two chapters to make up for my absence. i've been really struggling with my writing lately and wondering if it's even worth it to continue this fic, knowing that by the time it's done it won't even be anywhere close to resembling canon, but i will persevere. i just love sharon so much, and i hope that at least one tiny ounce of that shows up in my writing. it's taken me this long because even though i do know where this fic is going, it's hard for me to push past all of the boring stuff and get to what i really want to write. but i hope that i have accurately shown the struggle that sharon is going through, how she's trying to do her job and trying to shove her feelings down at the same time, at war with knowing what the right thing to do is but wanting to follow her heart instead. /anyway. ramble over. happy sharon carter appreciation month, i love you all.

* * *

Even a half smile would have slowed down the time,  
If I could call you half mine,  
Maybe this is the safest way to go.  
\- Walking On Cars, Speeding Cars

* * *

They need a tech guy. In all other circumstances, Sharon knows that Tony would be the right person for the job. He was the first person to buy her a cellphone, the guy that she always called when her laptop wasn't working, even if she knew that she could fix it herself. That was just Tony's _thing_ ; he liked to help, and he was good at tech.

But now that she's in the thick of it, now that she's in this thing with Steve and Sam, she doesn't think she can ask him anymore. She doesn't know how he'll react, knowing that she's working with the people who had actively fought against him to stop the Sokovia Accords. She doesn't know how to tell him that despite everything, she still wants to help Steve. That despite what had happened between him and Tony, she still sees how _good_ Steve is, and thinks that she can help him do even more good.

Sharon's always had to separate work and family life. That's just what being an agent was. Emotions were secondary, families were a target, and caring got you killed. But things were different now. Sharon was finally starting to feel like she had it all figured out, that she didn't have to hide the different parts of herself anymore. She was living with Tony, he was helping her with her undercover job, and it was _working_. She'd established a routine, had a family to come home to every night, or at least people she'd come to see as family. She'd started to train, work, research, and make dinner in the same building for once in her life, and now all of it was slipping away.

Now she was back to the same thing she'd been doing before Germany, like she hadn't learned anything. It felt to Sharon like she was just moving in circles. Be an agent, lose any semblance of a personal life. Finally gain a personal life, lose your job. It was like she couldn't _ever_ win. Every time she felt like she was gaining some footing, her feet slipped right back out from under her. The second she cleared her name and got back into the government circuit she was sneaking around behind Tony and Agent Ross' backs all over again.

Was there ever going to be a time when Sharon could do what she loved and do the right thing at the same time?

Her brain's been spinning through the same cycle of thoughts the entire day of work. It had only been a week since she and the boys had decided to form their team, and there hadn't been much progress since. There were things they needed: money, people, uniforms, tech. And sure, Sharon's decent enough at research, but she's no top hacker by any means. She's no Daisy Johnson, formerly known as Skye, the hacker that Agent Coulson had picked up and turned into one of the greatest SHIELD agents of their time.

Everything seemed like it was in a lull, but for some reason Sharon just couldn't enjoy it. There was something wrong about how calm it had been feeling recently, how quiet things seemed to be. Besides the recent school incident in DC, nothing major had happened. Sharon understands now why Tony gets so paranoid, how he always gets stressed out when things are too easy.

Because that's what they say, isn't it? The calm before the storm. It's what SHIELD had taught her to do: avoid routines, don't get complacent. Sharon's trying not to, but it had felt so good for that short while before Steve showed up and changed everything. And she doesn't resent him for it, she doesn't. Even when she desperately wants to be, she's not the kind of person who can stand back and do nothing. They're the same in that way: they need action, need to be out in the field helping, doing _something_.

Sharon lets out a sigh, running her hands over her face in frustration. The list runs through her mind again: tech guy, uniforms, money, space. She has at least ten emails from Tony's guys in her inbox about the move and whether or not she wants her stuff transported upstate with the rest of it, what to do about Vision, etc. etc.

She's deep in thought, as she always is these days because she _literally_ has nothing else to do, sitting on her ass and waiting for things with Steve and Sam to fall into place, when someone knocks on her office door. She's been spending more and more time in her office lately and less wandering around the hallways, trying to imitate the high school principals she remembers from her childhood and from movies. Her head pops up, almost as if she's guilty of something, even though she knows that she's not. Sharon knows that she's doing the right thing with Steve, she really does. Still, it sends a twitch through her heart every time she remembers what she's doing to Tony because of it.

"Come in!" she calls out, and two seconds later an adorably disheveled Peter Parker pokes his head through the door. If she'd been trying to forget about Tony, meeting with Peter is the least helpful thing to help her do it. Still, Sharon tries to hold back a laugh, because he honestly looks scared shitless. She's curious as to whether he'd be more afraid of her if he knew her real job description.

Sharon had had to call in all of the students who were part of the DC incident, somewhat out of sheer curiosity, but also because Agent Ross had ordered it. It wasn't completely out of the bounds of what a normal high school VP would do: offer condolences, explain to the students that they're not in trouble, that she just wants to make sure that they're okay.

Which she does. Sharon wants the best for these kids, no matter what it is that she's been ordered to do. She gestures for Peter to sit down in the chair across from her with what she hopes is a comforting smile.

"Ms. Dawson, hi, I hope I'm not intruding," Peter starts before he even sits down, and Sharon shakes her head, still smiling.

"It's okay, Mr. Parker. I just wanted to check in on you after what happened in DC. Have you needed to see any of our guidance counselors at all?"

Peter shakes his head, hands still clenched around his backpack straps. He stops fidgeting after a bit, loosening his hold on the straps and setting his bag on the ground. "That's really nice, Ms. Dawson, but I'm okay. I wasn't really… there." He looks down when he says it, an obvious tell, and Sharon remembers that, officially, that is the truth. Peter Parker hadn't been in the elevator with his friends, but Spider-man _had_ come to the rescue. She wants to question him for real, to ask him if he's okay, how it felt to help people in danger.

Even though Sharon's aware of how strongly Tony feels about this situation, how much he doesn't want Peter risking his life like that, Sharon knows how she felt on her first mission. She was much older than Peter, granted, and professionally trained, but somehow that makes what he's done even more impressive. He'd helped his classmates with nothing more than sheer force of will and ingenuity. It took a real ballsy kid to do something like that.

"No," Sharon concedes, "but your friends were affected, weren't they? I wouldn't be surprised if they're all a bit shaken up, even you. Sometimes seeing your friends in danger is scarier than being in danger yourself." She sees Peter's tiny sigh and feels her heart constrict. This poor boy, she thinks to herself, all alone without anyone to help him with his incredibly huge secret. At least at the Academy Sharon had had people like Bobbi and Trip, people who understood the incredible burden that came alongside the euphoria of their jobs. Peter's had to go at this all alone, and Sharon understands that even with Tony's help he probably feels like no one understands this.

All too quickly, Sharon has a flash of what a young Steve might have looked like: desperate to help at any cost, equally excited and terrified at the prospect of doing so. Peter gives her a genuine smile and it eases some of her worry, but not all of it.

"It's okay, Ms. Dawson, really. It was scary, but the important thing is that we're all safe, right?" he asks her. She gives him a soft smile.

"Alright, Peter. I don't want to keep you out of class for too long." He nods, grabbing his bag off of the floor and swinging it around onto his shoulders again. "I just wanted to call you in here, let you know that you can come to me if you need anything, okay?"

He gives her another quick nod. "Thanks, Ms. Dawson. I'm going to uh, head back to class now?" He says it like a question, which actually makes her laugh. The amount of energy coupled with insecurity in the kid makes her so glad that she's not a teenager anymore. Still, she wishes that she could be so buoyant and optimistic again. She doesn't know if she still has it in her.

* * *

Sharon heads to the Tower's private gym after work, needing a release from all of her frustrations. Surprisingly, she catches both Vision and Tony there, casually sparring. Although for Tony, sparring with Vision at this point in their relationship mostly consists of quick jibes on Tony's part and amused answers on Vision's.

"Hey, guys," Sharon greets them as she comes in, dropping her gym bag by the door. She heads straight for the glove rack, needing to wrap her hands for the amount of damage that she knows she's going to do to the punching bag tonight.

Tony's greeting is more enthusiastic than Vision's; Sharon has a feeling that he's been looking for an excuse to stop sparring, needing something more exciting to happen. He calls out a happy "Sharon!" when she walks in, and grins at her when he walks over while she's wrapping her hands. He chugs down half a water bottle before he can do anything else. "Anything exciting happening tonight? Hot date again?" he asks, waggling his eyebrows at her. Sharon rolls her eyes, shoving him playfully on the shoulder with her now wrapped hands.

"Do you really think I'd be working out before a date?"

Tony shrugs, taking another swig of his water. "I don't know what kind of weird rituals you have before you go on dates," he says, smirking. "Maybe you're into that whole sweaty thing."

"Ew," Sharon says, rolling her eyes and reaching for her favorite pair of gloves. They're an old, raggedy pair, but Peggy had given them to her before Sharon started at the Academy and she's used them ever since.

"I didn't know you were seeing someone, Sharon," Vision pipes up from one of the weight machines, which Sharon still thinks is odd to see him using. He doesn't really need the practice, considering the fact that he's literally, like, an otherworldly being with superpowers. Still, she'd taught him the importance of going through the motions, and it's nice to see him following her advice. It's also pleasant to hear him finally calling her by her first name. Sharon had never enjoyed that weird formality between them. This feels more real, more like a conversation between family.

Something in her heart settles at the thought that she now considers these people her family. For so long, it had just been Sharon and no one else. Her parents had died when she was at the Academy, Tony's even before then. And then recently the deaths of Trip, Aunt Peggy, and Aunt Angie so quickly right after one another had left Sharon feeling like the only person she had left in the world was Tony.

She smiles warmly at Vision, ignoring Tony's smug grin. She hasn't really dated much in her life, and she knows that even though it's a lie, Tony's happy for her. He tends to cover his genuine feelings with pithy little comments, a quirk of his that Sharon's learned to love, but she knows that underneath it all his feelings are just as deep as everyone else's.

"It's recent," Sharon tells Vision, who gives her a small nod in response. "Not really serious yet."

"Well," he says, getting up from his pointless weight lifting, "I wish you all the best."

"Aw," Sharon replies. She'd gone into the workout room feeling incredibly restless, in need of some violent way of getting rid of her emotions, not _more_ emotions. "Thank you, Vis. I really appreciate it." He nods at her and leaves the room, and Sharon reminds herself to treat him to a cooking lesson tonight. The boys could wait. " _See_ ," she chides, turning back to Tony, who'd been watching their interaction with a warm smile on his face. "That's how you actually talk to your friends. You could learn something from Mr. Robot over there."

"Oh, ha ha," Tony rolls his eyes. "You're not a friend, you're family. I can be as mean to you as I want."

Sharon laughs, heading over to the punching bag, and Tony follows. "Want me to hold it?" he asks, and Sharon nods. She gets into the right stance, taking a few calming breaths. Tony frowns, and Sharon notices the telltale crease in-between his eyebrows that tells her he's worried about something. But worried about what? She'd filled him in on the Peter situation on her drive home over the phone, so there was nothing to be afraid of there. There was no active threat around, even though he did tend to be somewhat paranoid.

Had he found out about her? Sharon feels a bead of sweat drip down her temple as she goes at the punching bag, the repetitive one-two, one-two movement of her body keeping her mostly calm, even though she's starting to stress out again.

She pauses for a second, wiping some sweat off of her face. Tony's still silent. "Hey," Sharon starts, taking a deep breath. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Tony breathes, "yeah. I just. I don't know. I didn't know how to bring up the topic."

"Oh?" Sharon asks, heart skipping in her chest. She hasn't entirely cooled off from her punching yet. "Something bad?"

"No, no," he reassures her. "Something really fucking good, actually." He takes another pause and Sharon wants to scream, wants him to spit it out already, because she's so used to bad news that she's going to get a freaking hernia, she knows it. "I called Pepper," Tony says, and Sharon swears that she feels her heart stop.

"Oh my god, and?" she prompts, practically bouncing on her toes. He doesn't know about her and Steve, he might be back together with Pepper, maybe she's safer than she thought she was—

"She talked to me," Tony laughs, and it's such a small, timid laugh that it almost makes her hug him, but she won't, because she's sweaty and gross and it all feels too big for her to contain. Tony only ever looks like this, only ever talks like he's a teenage boy with a crush, when he's talking about Pepper. "You were right, Sharon," and Sharon smirks like, _of course I was_. He rolls his eyes and keeps talking. "We haven't spoken for months but it still felt so natural, you know? Like we were still together."

"That's so great, Tony," Sharon gushes. She's given up on her punching for the night. She'd come into the gym with a torment of emotions inside of her, and somehow they'd managed to be calmed, at least for the most part. Tony and Vision had raised her spirits in only the way that family could do, and now this news about Tony and Pepper had lifted her up entirely. "Do you think… do you think you guys are going to get back together?"

Tony shakes his head, but it's not a "no, we're never going to be a couple again" kind of shake. It's an unsure, hesitant kind of head shake, like he's so enamored that he doesn't know what to do about it. "I don't want to rush it," he says. "I don't want to push her into anything that she doesn't want to do. I want to win her back, but not because she feels like she has to. I want her to want me again, you know?"

And Sharon decides to just screw it and hug him anyway, because even though she doesn't care for hugs usually and even if she is all sweaty, this is a hug kind of situation. Tony squeezes her tight, like he had that night that he'd found her in Aunt Peggy's house, lost and confused and alone. And though she might still feel lost, she knows that with Tony, she'll have no reason to feel alone ever again.

* * *

After taking a quick shower and tugging on a loose pair of sweats and a hoodie, Sharon wanders around the Tower looking for Vision, remembering her note to self from earlier. They haven't spent much time together since Steve had come into the picture, which made Sharon feel incredibly guilty. She never wanted to be the kind of person who abandoned her friends for a guy, and even though she and Vision weren't the closest of friends, it still mattered to her how he felt. He was part of their team, part of the family that they had created for themselves.

Tony had called it "Team Loser", but Sharon didn't quite agree with that sentiment. They had all fought and lost, even Steve, _especially_ everyone who could have even been considered part of the winning team. It wasn't a win or lose situation, it was just an endless cycle of loss, everyone lose lose losing and nothing ever getting done. That's what this job feels like ninety-nine percent of the time. It's the other five percent, the times that they can save someone, like Peter did in DC, _that_ feeling is what she does it for.

She finds Vision in the living room on her floor, reading a book on the Kindle that Tony had probably bought him, waiting… for her? She doesn't want to assume, put words in his mouth, but if anything she's glad that he's sought her out in the same way that she's done him. She feels some sort of responsibility towards Vis, a desire to make him feel less alone, to show him that humanity isn't the bullshit fest that he's only ever witnessed up until this point.

"Hey," she says, and he looks up at her, not smiling but not angry either. Vision never smiles unless he really means it, so she's not offended. Just glad to see him. "Did you want to make something for dinner?" She moves towards the kitchen, opening the fridge and rifling around. "I don't really know what we have, but if you have some ideas…?" She trails off, waiting for him to respond.

"I was partial to something I saw in one of your books called… macaroni and cheese?" He says it so innocently, so questioningly, his voice going up at the end, that Sharon jumps and smacks her head on the top of the fridge from laughter.

She slams it closed, still laughing and now cursing, rubbing the top of her head and meeting Vision's concerned gaze. "Oh my god," she says, practically choking on her laughter, "sorry, can I just—just give me a minute." Vision waits politely for her to stop her hysterics, still rubbing the top of her head. "Sorry," Sharon says again, "I'm not laughing at you, I swear. That was just so unexpected." She takes a breath, composing herself. "How the hell have you not had mac and cheese yet? It was like, my dietary staple growing up."

Vision shrugs, making his way over to the kitchen. "We've been spending so much time making all of those fancy recipes that you like that I guess we never got around to it."

Sharon pauses, resting her body weight on her forearms on the counter. "Huh," she says. "That is so not like me. Usually it's fries this, burgers that—I haven't always been the type to enjoy fancy meals." She sighs. "I guess I was so used to those other foods that I wanted you to taste something different, but I forgot that you haven't even had any of the basics yet. But anyway. Do you want to call Tony down? We definitely have all the ingredients for mac and cheese, it's really easy."

Vision nods, skirting around her and making his way to the elevator.

"I didn't mean—" Sharon calls after him. "You don't actually have to go get him. Just use your cell. Or mine."

"Oh," Vision says, stopping for a second but then making up his mind and continuing towards the elevator. "I know," he tells her. "It just gives me something to occupy my time."

Sharon shrugs. "Have it your way," she grins, amused at her own reference. It's been a long time since she's heard that phrase, considering. It's even better when Vision catches her eyes, also grinning, making Sharon laugh. It's always nice when he catches a pop culture reference, even as mundane as one for a chain restaurant. She watches him get into the elevator with a soft smile, then gets to work gathering the ingredients.

* * *

An hour later the food has been devoured and Sharon, Tony, and Vision are lounged on the couch in her living room, flipping channels to see what will stick, when Sharon's phone rings. There's only one person it could be, really, unless she's counting work stuff, but even then she screens most of Ross' calls anyway. The second she hears the ringtone her heart simultaneously flies up into her throat and skips a beat. She tries to play it cool, but she's scrambling out from underneath the blanket that she's rolled herself into in five seconds, anyway, spilling tea on her hoodie in her mad dash to get the mug onto the table in one piece.

"Be more desperate!" Tony calls out after her, and she flips him off as she snatches her phone off of the table and scampers into the hallway towards her bedroom. Thank god the number had flashed as unlisted, because she's still not ready to tell Tony what's going on. She keeps promising herself, _soon_ , but every time she feels like she's ready to bring it up she gets nauseous and changes the subject.

She answers the call before even making it to her room, cupping the phone against her ear and taking a deep breath. "Hey," she answers, trying to make it seem like she hasn't been waiting for his call when she absolutely has been. They've been talking almost every day, like they'd agreed on, usually with Sam but sometimes not. Sharon locks the door to her bedroom when she reaches it, hopping up on the mattress and tugging the covers over herself as she settles in. She secretly hopes that it's just going to be them on the phone together, alone.

"Hey," Steve answers, voice smooth and rich, making her warm all over for reasons not having to do with being in bed. Or maybe… everything to do with beds, and being in them. She shakes her head to clear the thoughts away. She feels like a teenage girl again, hiding in her room to make phone calls, giddy and excited for no other reason than the knowledge of who's on the other line. "So," he starts without preamble, and Sharon has to admire his initiative, because he's really always ready to go, isn't he? Ready to go as in… for work reasons. Obviously. "Good news. Sam got in contact with Scott Lang."

Sharon feels a small part of her deflate, the knot of stress that had been forming in her chest all day at the thought of the plans that they were making, all of the puzzle pieces not yet formed into place. _Of course_ , Scott Lang, she thinks to herself. She'd somehow completely forgotten about his involvement in the fight in Germany and how he'd helped Steve when he was called. "Oh my god, that's great!" she trills back, hating herself for sounding so eager. _Jesus, Sharon, get it together_ , she chides herself.

"It gets better," Steve teases, and her stomach flutters, pulse pounding.

"Oh yeah?"

Steve chuckles on the other line. _Christ_. "Yeah. Sam told me that Scott got his whole team on board, which isn't much at this point, but it does include Hank Pym, who has so graciously offered to help us with funding. They're all pretty good with tech, too. And since you know Hope… er, know of her, at least, it gives them more reason to trust us."

Sharon nods to herself, understanding the sentiment. She knows full well the kind of weight that her name carries, the people that will automatically ally with her or worse, automatically guard themselves because of that name. It is both a blessing and a curse, being a Carter, but Sharon wouldn't give it up for the world. She understands why it might be that Hope took her mother's last name, wanting to make a place for herself in the world without her father's influence. It's incredibly brave, and if Sharon values anything, it is a woman who understands hard work. As all of them do.

"This is… really happening, huh?" She asks him, sounding more nervous than she'd intended to. There's something about Steve that does that to her. He just strips down all of her walls, leaving her raw and vulnerable whenever she speaks to him. She doesn't know if she'll ever get used to it. To him.

"Sharon," Steve says quietly, and it makes her sit up in bed, push away from the pillows she'd been snuggled into. "You don't have to do this, you know. It's not like I'm… expecting anything. From you."

Sharon's quiet for a second, processing his words. Leans back against the headboard and closes her eyes, letting his voice wash over her for just that one second. For that small amount of time, she pretends that they're just normal people. That Steve isn't on the run from the government, that Sharon isn't working for that same government that's hunting him, that they're both on the same side of this multi-sided, never-ending battle for who knows what anymore. She lets herself pretend, like she never has before, that they could actually be something other than what they are: a soldier and a spy, two opposites working towards a common good.

And then she opens her eyes. "There's no way I'm leaving you two alone with this," Sharon tells him, point blank. "There's no… there's no going back now, Steve. You and I both know that I am the kind of person that needs to do something, that I can't sit back from a fight. And without SHIELD out there, people are getting _hurt_. People who need our help, and it's help from things that the government has no idea about. I need to do this. It has nothing to do with you."

She hears Steve take a deep breath, exhale. It's comforting, even though his silence is making her think that she might've been too harsh. But it was the truth. Regardless of her feelings for Steve, Sharon would back him no matter what. It was a matter of if, not when. "You know," Steve says softly, "after that night in our apartment building, I never thought I'd see you again". It's not entirely a revelation, but it feels like one. Sharon's hand tightens on her phone, the other in her bedsheets. "I had no idea who you were, if you'd still be there when I got back. _If_ I ever even came back."

Just months ago—Christ, had it only been months? It feels like a lifetime has gone by—just months ago she hadn't known what it was like to kiss him. She still doesn't, not really, but this close to midnight she's tired and sleepy and his voice on the other end makes the image swim up in her mind, unbidden, the way he had kissed her so carefully, his arms so big and warm. She can't even hear what he's saying, really, just listens to the tone of his voice as she presses shaky fingers to her lips, remembering what it had been like.

Her lips part for just a second, because she wants to ask him about it, wants to know if he still thinks about it as much as he does. How could he? He's always busy, has more important things on his mind than the simple act of a goodbye kiss that he'd given her when he had been desperate and she'd helped him.

And yet she still thinks about it, even after all this time.

"It's not like I knew you either," Sharon says, but she's whispering now, unsure of why she's doing it except that this moment feels too precious, like it's going to slip away from her at any second. She wants to grab onto it, never let it go. "Not really."

Steve's quiet again. "When I saw you at Peggy's funeral—god, it feels so fucking awful to say it out loud, Jesus—"

"Steve," Sharon says, because no other words sound right. Just his name, an admission, a prayer. "Steve."

"Seeing you again, after all that time, it was like I woke up. It was like I had been sleeping through my life, going through the motions, and then you were there, like the sun had come up. What am I supposed to do with that?"

If he had been anyone else, Sharon would've invited him over. She would've kicked Tony and Vision off of her floor and dragged Steve into her room and done things to him that even Natasha would be ashamed to speak of out loud. But it wasn't—he wasn't—it was _Steve_. He was _so_ good, the most amazing person she's ever met, simply radiating goodness. And she wasn't.

What is _she_ supposed to do with that, with what he told her? She's no good at this, no good at feelings, at wanting things that she can never have.

Because she does, and she admits it to herself freely, knowing that she can't (nor should she) ever act on what she's feeling: she wants Steve. Wants to fall asleep with him, wants to wake up to him, just wants to be fucking… near him, in his atmosphere, at all hours of every day. And the force of it hits her like this _every_ time, every time he talks to her, every time he looks at her, like an asteroid hitting the earth.

Sharon wants to cry with the knowing of how much she wants him. "Steve," she says again, a broken wind-up toy with no substance, stuck repeating the same phrase over and over. "I don't know what to say. I don't know—"

"You don't have to say anything," he tells her, and she can't tell if there's a crack in his voice when he says it or if it's just her imagination. "I just wanted you to know." A pause. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Sleep well."

"Sleep well," Sharon starts to say, but he's already hung up the phone.

* * *

please let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

plot? whom is she? i just want people to talk about their feelings

* * *

Who says we're wrong for opening the wrong doors?  
Lock up, swallow the key,  
You'll never replace me.  
Cause we've all fallen for someone we're wrong for,  
Step out and feel the breeze,  
You'll never replace me.  
\- Andrew Belle, Replace Me

* * *

To say that the call had shaken her would be a bit of an understatement. Sharon had gone through the rest of her nightly routine in a daze, spilling toothpaste down the front of her hoodie, forgetting to brush her hair. She'd wandered out of her room feeling a bit lost, mostly confused, and emotionally drained in a way that she hadn't been since that funeral. Vision and Tony had seen the look on her face and thankfully didn't ask, Tony steering Vision away to give Sharon some space, which she was grateful for. She certainly needed it.

She'd never heard Steve talk like that, so lovely and tragic and… self-deprecating. She knew he had a masochistic streak, but she'd never seen it in full force, not like that, when he'd been speaking about Aunt Peggy. She'd underestimated the amount of guilt that he might feel, hell, even the amount of guilt that _she_ felt about the entire thing.

Sharon had her own reasons for deciding not to pursue a relationship with Steve. A lot of them stemmed from the fact of who she was as a person: hard, unyielding, emotionally distant. She hadn't been in a long-term relationship in her entire life, how the hell could she start now? The other half, and she hadn't realized how large this half of her reasoning was, had to do with the fact that Steve clearly wasn't over Peggy. It was strange, the disparity in time between them, but Sharon had seen it on his face at the funeral, and she'd heard it in his voice last night.

He loved Peggy, _still_ loves Peggy, and being with Sharon would betray that. Sharon wouldn't be able to live with herself if she was the reason that Steve ruined all of his beautiful memories of the first, maybe the only, woman he had ever fallen in love with. She couldn't be the person that took Peggy away from him all over again. Sharon knows that loss, knows what it's like to live in a world without Peggy Carter in it, and it's a hard pill to swallow. She doesn't like living in that world, and she definitely won't force it onto anyone else. It didn't matter that Steve had lost Peggy, too (twice!). It mattered that he didn't lose her ever _again_.

If she and Steve really went for it, really decided to be together, it would never end well for them. They were too different, personality and life-experience wise. He was bright where she was dark, forthcoming where she was secretive, kind where she was firm. He was from a different time, a time that she had no experience with, where people fell in love quickly around a war that killed them and their friends. Sharon didn't know that time, but she knew that he cherished it. That time was Bucky and Peggy and Uncle Howard, and Sharon knew deep in her heart that if they started dating, being with her would only remind Steve of all that he had lost, over and over again.

How could she be the person that dragged him back, when he needed someone who propelled him forward?

* * *

Sharon continues wandering around in a daze the entire morning, getting dressed and ready for work with no knowledge of how she's done it. She trips over the moving boxes in the hallway outside of her room, cursing and sputtering, finally tugging a brush through the tangled mess that was her hair, shoving it up and into a ponytail before leaving the house.

The school is in a tizzy about Homecoming, students putting up banners and posters in the hallways when she finally arrives at Midtown. "Watch out, Ms. Dawson!" one of the boys shouts in her direction from the top of a ladder as a banner slips out of his hands while she's walking underneath it. She deftly dodges it and helps him pull it back up, his face flushing an embarrassed red as she does so. She puts on the high school administrator role easily, waving off his apologies and urging him to get to class before the final bell rings.

Sharon can't remember ever caring this much about a single dance when she'd been younger. She'd always had other things on her mind, like where and when she'd be able to get Aunt Peggy alone to beg another story off of her; the next time that she'd see Tony; what to do about all of her abandoned engineering projects (because they had all been _impossible_ ); and how best to convince her parents to sign her up for karate lessons without revealing her actual need for them.

There had also been the fact that no boys had ever been interested in Sharon at that age, neither in junior high or in high school. She'd always been far too awkward, too loud, too much of a feminist for them, and not enough of a beauty queen. For all the reasons that she loved Aunt Peggy, it was also incredibly hard to be a young girl and be related to Peggy at the same time. It was as if Sharon was always a letdown to people who didn't even know her, a letdown to everyone she met before she even got to know them.

Everyone had an idea of who she was supposed to be before they even met her, as if she was some little Peggy clone that her aunt had made in a factory exactly in her own image. Sharon had never been Peggy Carter _enough_ , no matter how much she wanted to be, how much she tried to be. She had modeled herself and her life so much on her beautiful, wonderful, inspiring aunt, but she was still _herself_. And that's just not what people wanted. They didn't want Sharon, they wanted Peggy Carter's niece. They wanted a brunette bombshell, one that could protect herself and look sexy while aiming a gun, all the while smiling and telling them that everything was going to be okay.

They didn't want what Sharon had been, too skinny and boob-less, with a sharp mouth and not enough patience, someone who knew that things weren't going to be okay no matter how hard anyone tried.

So she had stayed home whenever there was a dance, preferring instead to drown herself in books about wars, about revolutions, about anything and everything she could learn that would be useful to her once she finally joined SHIELD. All of this against her parents' wishes, of course. Amanda and Harrison had always been wary of Sharon's Peggy hero-worship, wanting their daughter to discover who she _was_ , like that was so easy. They limited Sharon's visits to her aunt in New York to three times a month, and even with Tony swooping in to steal her away even more than that, it had never been enough.

And then there was Tony's investigation into his own parents' death, something that still makes Sharon's heart twinge with guilt every time she thinks about it, knowing what she knows about Bucky now. She'd been a child when they died, but a teenager when Tony found out the truth about them. Even at that young age, she tried to do everything she could to help her best friend, the only sibling she ever had, even though they weren't even related. She had even learned morse code for him, young and naive enough to think that decoding secret messages was all that spy work consisted of.

Safe to say that her teenage years weren't even close to being picturesque. Sharon had walked a fine line between trying to be her own person and living up to this idea of herself that she had in her mind, a self that was modeled on the kind of person that she thought Peggy would want her to be. And it was easy, back then, to think that all she had to do was ask, _What Would Aunt Peggy Do?_ , like some kind of mantra, and that that would solve all of her problems.

It was harder now with Peggy gone, being an adult and realizing that her aunt wasn't perfect, wasn't the infallible agent that Sharon had imagined her to be. It was harder now, having to live with all that she herself had done, all of the killing and the scars and wounds that being a part of SHIELD had left on her, physical or otherwise.

Sharon takes a deep breath as she sits in the office chair behind a desk that isn't even hers, burying her face in her hands, trying to calm her erratic breathing. Then she opens up her fake email account, types out a message to the rest of the faculty about chaperones for the Homecoming dance, and volunteers herself as one for the entire night.

She had been lost for so long, but she was healing, however slowly, and she had a job to do. She made a promise to Tony to keep Peter safe, and that's exactly what she was going to do. She doesn't have it in her to follow the boy at all hours of the day like a creepy stalker, but she sure as hell is going to be there at any opportunity that she can, watching over him like a twisted version of a fairy godmother.

It doesn't matter how she's feeling, how off-kilter she's left after every conversation with Steve, as if he tears down her armor every single time, and all that she's left with are the pieces and only popsicle sticks to rebuild them with. She's going to get through this. If she could survive her friends dying, Aunt Peggy dying, and all of the rest of it, she could handle juggling her undercover work and her friendships at the same time.

And even if she can't, she still has to.

* * *

Sharon makes it to the old house an hour after work, exhausted and waterlogged. It had decided to torrentially downpour on her, and of course in her discombobulated state that morning she hadn't bothered checking the weather.

The only thing she had managed to get done at work was sending a bunch of emails and filing some paperwork, but she felt pretty productive about it regardless. Whoever created the nine to five workday was a sadist, because no one needed that much time to get so little done. The rest of her time had been spent spinning around idly in her chair, calling Pepper and catching up on gossip (she and Tony had a date that weekend, which made Sharon whoop in joy so loudly that the secretary from the office over had knocked on her door to ask what was wrong), and calling in a few students from the Homecoming planning committee to make some last minute decisions.

Sharon notes the flowers in the mailbox by the door with a sigh of relief as she rushes through the rain, her mind still occupied by thoughts of Tony and Pepper. The only thing that allowed her to come to the house tonight was knowing that Tony was so busy with the move and keeping tabs on Peter that he'd be too distracted by it to notice if she didn't come back to the Tower, if it came down to it. Not that she expected this meeting to take all night, but when it came to vigilante business, she really had no idea what to expect.

She lets herself in with her old key, following the sound of voices into the living room. Sam and Steve had set up a nice dinner of takeout for themselves, complete with wine glasses and an already half-empty bottle. Sharon quirks an eyebrow at them as she sheds her pathetic, non-rainproof coat, and sets down all of her stuff on the loveseat next to where they're sitting.

"Didn't know we were having a party," she says with a small laugh, feeling lighter than she had all morning. It's nice to know that they can still have small moments of peace while doing this, even if it won't always be that way.

"We're celebrating the fact that we're technically loaded," Sam answers her, laughing himself.

"Oh?" she grins.

Steve pats the couch cushion next to him, urging her to sit down. Sharon does just that, freeing her soaked hair from its day-long ponytail and accepting the glass of wine that Sam hands her, murmuring a soft thank-you in response. Both to Sam and the alcohol. "Pym made the first transfer this morning," Steve tells her. "It's enough to get our suits designed for now, and he's going to keep track of our progress as we go along and transfer more whenever we need it."

It's great news to hear, for once. She ignores the pressing knowledge of how close she and Steve are sitting in favor of asking as many questions as she can. To be fair, both of them have been superheroes before; she hasn't. "Have you guys made any designs yet?" she asks them. "I've never really had a professional suit made before. Usually it's just whatever we can find in black and a lot of tool belts. Nothing like what I've seen the Avengers wear." She pauses. "Although, Tony did once offer to get one custom-made for me, but it wasn't really my style. Super spandexy and white, and way too form-fitting for my tastes." She wrinkles her nose at the thought of it, something that Tony had designed on a whim way before the Avengers were as important as they were now.

Sam laughs at that and rifles through some pages that they have laid out on the table, handing one over to her. "This is some preliminary stuff, but just take a look. Steve and I pretty much know what we want from ours, but we gave you some options. Nothing in white though, obviously."

"Gets dirty too fast," Sharon agrees, flipping through the pages. It's pretty much what she expected, with a few different designs and minimal style changes that she'd be able to choose from according to preference. One design does stick out to her, and she studies it for a bit longer than the other ones.

For some reason it reminds her of the one that Tony had designed for her a few years ago, even though they're not that similar. The design is simple enough, a black stealth jacket with a belt, the collar high to protect her neck. The pants are a grey spandex-looking material, with thigh-holsters and everything, room for more weapons than she's ever carried at a time. Simple black boots completed the entire ensemble, and she notices a notch detail in them that indicates she'd be able to store weapons in those, too.

"What do you think?" Steve asks, placing a hand on her thigh that makes her jump slightly. She places her wine glass on the table, thinking that even the one might have been too much, and beams up at them.

"This one," Sharon tells them, pointing at it. "Did you guys design this together? It's pretty impressive."

Sam smiles and Steve shakes his head. "We gave a guy our ideas and he drew them out. Sam has never been that good at art, and I, uh, well. It's been a while since I've gotten any of my supplies out."

Sharon takes a breath. "I didn't know you were an artist," she tells Steve, surprised. It hits her for about the millionth time how much about him she still doesn't know. He's always surprising her, making her question her assumptions about him. His eyes meet her own and crease with a soft smile, and it hits her too hard, her head spinning. All at once their conversation from last night floods her mind all over again, and she unsuccessfully tries to slow her heart rate down.

Sam clears his throat, stealing the designs back from Sharon in an effort to steer the conversation somewhere else. "It's no bird costume," he teases her, "but I think it'll do."

* * *

A few hours or so later Sharon's already yawning, her late night from the night before and her early rise making her feel like an overworked middle-aged mother. Her parents had died young, and by the time she'd been at the Academy she didn't see them that often, but Sharon imagines she has a bit of her mother in her, now, and it's comforting to think that even if Amanda hadn't been able to rock the disgruntled mother look, at least Sharon might.

They'd worked on their plans for recruiting other members after they'd decided on the suits and Sharon had given Sam and Steve her measurements. Custom designs like this took time, so they'd probably have all of them in about two weeks or so. Sharon had tried to remember some old SHIELD bases, promising to look into them more throughout the week, and she'd decided to try and track down Natasha. It wouldn't be easy, especially because it was impossible to find Natasha when she didn't want to be found, but Sharon had to at least try.

They'd all agreed to look for at least one person to join the team, deciding that they'd figure out how many more members they needed after that. _Secret Avengers_. Sharon still can't believe that she's doing this.

After her yawns had started to become too noticeable, Sam had not-so-subtly nudged Steve into walking Sharon to the door, so Steve had helped her gather her stuff and walked her into the hall. They're stopped awkwardly by an old set of drawers whose origins Sharon doesn't remember, even though she'd passed by them so many times in her life.

She feels like they might be standing too close together, but doesn't say anything about it. Even though she knows they probably (definitely) shouldn't be doing this, she doesn't really have the strength to back away from him. Steve is smiling down at her and their height difference, not too exaggerated but enough that she's at least a head smaller than him, makes her head swim.

He smells so good, too, the rain and his own personal scent combining to make her feel dizzy and warm and fuzzy inside. His mouth parts to say something but then closes again. She doesn't know what possesses her to say it, but she calls him out on it.

"What?"

Steve shakes his head, taking a step closer, and Sharon backs up against the dresser. She shivers, tugging her coat tighter around herself, goosebumps prickling her arms. "Steve," she says again. "It's fine, you can tell me anything."

His throat bobs with emotion. "Do you ever… do you ever think about what happened in Germany?" His brow is furrowed, and Sharon can feel her own face tense up, thinking about the time she spent there. The bodies, the death, everything that they had done. Of course she does. She goes to say it, but Steve cuts her off. "About us, I mean."

Sharon's mouth goes dry. She swallows a bit, trying to think of something to say. "It was just... goodbye," she says, as quietly as she can manage. She feels like screaming, but she's never been brave enough to follow her heart, and she's certainly not going to start now. "Wasn't it?"

Steve looks at her, really _looks_ , his gaze piercing her own in a way that no one else's really ever has. Like he sees all the dead, black parts of her and wants to keep looking anyway. "Is that what you wanted it to be?" he asks, and it almost knocks her over, the gentle way he says it, the catch in his throat.

Sharon doesn't have a definition of want. She has _need_ and _should_ and _would like to, but can't_. When has she ever been able to want something, anything, in her entire life? That's not how this works. Sharon gets what she deserves, mostly, and then some things that she definitely doesn't. She's never had what she wanted, done what she wanted, unless that thing happened to coincide with direct orders, which was extremely unlikely.

"I don't... I don't know what I wanted. Is that what you wanted?"

Somehow they've ended up closer to each other than she'd intended, Steve's large body invading her personal space, pushing her back against the chest of drawers in the dimly lit hallway. The shadows of the flickering candles in the background play on his face, so that she's not quite sure what expression it is that he's wearing—is he upset? Angry?

Every inch of her skin is humming, alive with the knowledge of his presence right _there_ , close enough to touch, if she could just—reach out and touch him, run her hands along his chest, through his hair, bury her face in the hollow of his collar bone and never escape. Her hands curl into the ledge of the drawers, white-knuckled and straining against every impulse in her body that tells her to touch him.

Sharon swears that she can hear the catch in his breathing, the way that it speeds up. What's the last thing she said? She can't remember, all she can think about is what if she just licked the pulse-point, right there on his neck, what would he do? Every inch of her screams that this is a bad idea. Sam could walk in on them at any moment, and besides, she promised herself that she wouldn't do this, wouldn't get involved with a guy with so many _issues_ (not to mention her own), let alone a guy that used to—date? was involved with? her great fucking aunt—

Steve's hands curl over her own on the dresser and Sharon lets out a pathetic sound, quiet and under her breath, and his eyebrows furrow together, his hands tightening momentarily on her own. Her body is taught, a live wire, tense and ready to explode, his hands conducting more energy into her restless skin than she knows what to do with.

"Steve," she says, breathless for no reason than just this, just him, the calluses on his hands, the knowledge of his chest heaving, eyes focused so keenly on her own. " _Steve_."

Her mouth parts for him so easily she wonders if she had any self control at all. Sharon doesn't know who moves first, just that Steve is kissing her and she's kissing him back, and it feels so good, so different from that moment under the bridge. That kiss had been soft, searching, a question passed between two mouths, a hand curled softly at the nape of her neck. This kiss is desperate, _hot_ , a possession, and Sharon feels utterly and completely overwhelmed by it. How does a person learn to kiss like this? A person like _Steve_ , who is always so controlled, his movements deliberate and graceful, a soldier at every turn.

His hands reach under her thighs, easily lifting and depositing her on the chest of drawers for better leverage. He seems to be everywhere at once, hands drifting from her thighs to her ribcage before she can note the change in pressure. One second his mouth is on hers and the next it's teasing down her neck, over her collarbone, nipping at her earlobe, back on her mouth again. Sharon gasps for air, over and over, and still can't seem to get enough breath in her lungs. Her legs shift restlessly around his hips, pulling him closer, but it's not close enough, it'll never be close enough—

She gasps again, trying to move her mouth away from Steve's, to stop this hypnotism that he seems to have over her, but he just chases her back with more kisses, his mouth so hungry and desperate that it makes her hungry in turn. She tries again, shoving gently at his chest, immediately stopping Steve in his tracks. This close she can see the dilation of his eyes, his kiss-bruised mouth, and wonders why the hell she stopped in the first place. Right, because, "We can't do this," she tells him.

He's still breathing heavily, every breath that he takes rubbing his chest against her own, and Sharon has to close her eyes to control herself. "You're right," Steve says, his voice rough, but he doesn't move, his thumbs pressing gently into the hollows of her hipbones. "This is a bad idea."

Her eyes are open again and she's tracing them over his stubbled jaw, a beard starting to grow there, and Steve watches her do it, hands still making her crazy, eyes focused on her mouth. "Oh, god," Sharon sighs, tangling her hands in the hair on the nape of his neck and pulling his face back down to her own.

* * *

sharon's suit is based on the civil war concept art for the scene that she was never fucking in :)


End file.
